


Infinite

by mikachan



Series: Addiction [3]
Category: Black Butler, Kuroshitsuji
Genre: Angst, Biting, Bittersweet, Cannon compliant, Dom/sub, M/M, Power Play, Riding, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, So much angst, Subspace, but not cheesy i swear, cannon divergent at the end, changes, how to tag, im not even sorry??????, major character death kind of???? but not really, spillingashes, tags and warnings are subject to change !!, what, yes theres smut in the first chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-05-03 14:15:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 23
Words: 69,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5294327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikachan/pseuds/mikachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'His touches were petals falling to snow; ashes amongst a pile of bones that brought life to them again.  He was so gentle with me, as if he feared breaking my skin if he only pushed a little harder against it.  I knew that he would one day have my soul... a soul he found so pure and enchanting.  He once called me exquisite.  For what am I without a soul to animate me?  His eyes seemed to glow in the dimness of the washroom.  His gaze pricked at me; a rushing flame that would never extinguish.  These limbs would not move without a force to occupy their senses, and these eyes would never close until they were sucked dry from their tears, and my essence had far ascended into that glowing that was infinite.  He was infinite.  And I was not.'</p><p>(Though this is part of a series, the other two are one-shots.  This work stands alone; you do not have to have read the others to understand this plot line.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The leaves began to change in September, and I did too. And as I began to fall further, so did those hues of orange, green, yellow and red. Our hidden trysts always seemed to start in a fluid and languid way; gentle kisses upstairs in the midst of a ball, when I'd caught him running the wine trolly down... lips seeming to connect naturally mere minutes after Elizabeth had left the manor, or those unexpected touches in the carriage on the way home from brunch with the queen. Though they always ended fast paced and raw; bruised hips knocking against that dimmed, gray wallpaper... sweat soaking through my already crumpled sheets, or fragile knees sinking into the plush of that bench as the carriage continued its lazy trot. But every time, Sebastian left me lonelier and more starving than the last. He kept me wanting him within the hours when he remained strictly my butler. There were times when he was my demon, and times when he was my lover. But I wasn't sure if I felt loved. And I wasn't sure if it mattered, either.

I hadn't had a nightmare since that first night in April, when the spring showers had been more like storms and the sun was no longer shining, but rusted with clouds. And every time his lips left mine my hunger for him grew and turned into an insatiable need. It was hell. He was hell. But I wanted nothing less than to feel like I was suffocating in darkness. I needed my skin to keep flaming so he could forever soothe my burns with his fingertips and tongue. I felt desired... lusted after. I felt that he loved me in every way that he could. But love had never been part of the agenda. 

I loved him and craved him with everything I had, for he was, in fact, everything I had. But for the first time since my parent's death, I'd begun to feel the seeds of regret plant themselves deep within my lungs; and with every breath I took into his warm, soft skin, they grew into thorns and ripped at my self control. I should've been afraid of him. I should've ran from his dark, brooding silence the moment I noticed it lurking in the corner. But my young, weak mind was far too afraid to distinguish the monsters that were human from the one who was not. Because the devil doesn't come dressed in little, pointed horns and a red cape; he comes dressed as everything you've ever wanted, and everything you need. And in that moment I needed nothing but my hand to be clenched deeply within his.

It wasn't my infatuation with him that frightened me. It was the way in which my eyes began to only see his... and when I started to think the letters from the queen could wait until I figured this all out, or when I started to realize that I didn't want our contract to end. I logically knew that a deal was a deal. I didn't have to write a novel to understand that when I said he could have my soul, he would indefinitely have it. But I also knew that I was greedy and prideful. And though a contracted demon wants but one thing: the contractor's soul, he can also be impulsive. And I could feel Sebastian's impulse to play with his food.

These thoughts plagued me as they always did, as I sat with my back to the window; reading an old book I'd plucked from the dusty shelves of the library. It was 'A Winter's Tale' by Shakespeare. Though I loved the way his words twisted around the tongue of the reader, it was true that his works were made to be performed, not reformed. Though I was reading the words upon the yellowing pages, they weren't etching themselves into my consciousness like books should. They hadn't in a while. Sometimes I could lose myself in those ink-stained pages... and sometimes I could not. It seemed, today, that the latter option was the operative one.

I sighed, rubbing my temples as I deftly shut the hard cover of the book. The dust swirled around like snow in the golden rays of evening. It would be time time for supper, soon... and after that, the mask I wore would fall right off my face and land in the pile of ashes that I still continued to make. I stood, turning to gaze out the glassy pane of the spotless window. The trees outside were speckled with the shades of Autumn, and piles of leaves were already growing on the cobblestone. My work for the day was done, and I was only waiting for the daylight to close. I sighed again, and turned away.

I walked with a lazy stride to the front of the library, pale hands running along shelves and fingers tangling into page after page as I skimmed the leather covers. The ring on my finger gleamed with an unparalleled wonder; the sun hitting the cut stone like a beacon. It seemed as if I was staring at it from a boat lost at sea. It was my lighthouse; the only thing reminding me that the land was still there as I rocked endlessly on stormy waves of black ink. The air outside my lungs was peaceful and still... quiet as a mouse. But with every breath I took I felt myself drawing further back into that abyss. There was a pinprick of a hole forming in the hull of my ship... and I did not know how long it would take it to sink.

As my fingertips finally brushed along the hard edge of the last bookshelf, my head seemed to be cleared of the worlds that were swimming within it. Footsteps muffled by the lavish carpet beneath them, I strode forward towards the door. Creaking it open, I saw the hallway clear, and glanced behind me to view the clock hanging on the wall. It was nearly six, and dinner would be served within a matter of minutes. I decided to go to my study until I was called down, needing a change in atmosphere... no matter how minuscule.

In all my fifteen years, I had never thought that I would end up living this way. I'd never questioned anything before. But the emptiness I felt within these walls was suffocating, and forced my mind to become my only company. And within that company my thoughts ran rampant. It simply wasn't proper to make conversation with a servant... a demon, no less. But I suppose letting him into your body was far worse than letting him into your mind. But if I had done that much, I needed at least a sliver of of control to hang to... needed at least a ribbon of sanity.

I promised myself that I would never give up. So I wouldn't. But that didn't mean that I couldn't be afraid... didn't mean that the thought of death wasn't still frightening and mysterious. I wondered if, perhaps my soul was only divine to a beast because of my unwillingness to accept irrationality... no matter how irrational that might be. Humans are evil creatures. I could not say I felt the same about demons. How can one embody evil if they have no concept of it? Sebastian simply did as he was told; by me, by his hunger and his desires. It was true, he had no morals... but he also held no internal wickedness. He was wicked, but he wasn't a witch.

The bell rang in my study, signaling that whatever Sebastian had been preparing was ready... signaling that he still somehow knew wherever I was at any given time. I stood from the chair I had been sitting in, making my way through the hall and down the stairs before entering the dining room.

"Good evening, my lord."

I nodded at him. That name sounded formal... too formal.

I took my seat, shoulders squared and legs crossed under the table. I tried not to focus too much on the way Sebastian's gaze fell against my neck as I ate the meal placed before me. And once the excruciating slowness of that time passed, I was tense and aching for the feeling of warm water and soft, unloved hands against my skin. The air around us seemed to spin as I followed him up the stairwell. His breath mingled in the air like a smoke bomb... for though it was an intangible thing, I felt it bore through me like many silver bullets. The moon had risen, and the wind slowed as if it wished to hear the fire. 

His touches were petals falling to snow; ashes amongst a pile of bones that brought life to them again. He was so gentle with me, as if he feared breaking my skin if he only pushed a little harder against it. I knew that he would one day have my soul... a soul he found so pure and enchanting. He once called me exquisite. For what am I without a soul to animate me? His eyes seemed to glow in the dimness of the washroom. His gaze pricked at me; a rushing flame that would never extinguish. These limbs would not move without a force to occupy their senses, and these eyes would never close until they were sucked dry from their tears, and my essence had far ascended into that glowing that was infinite. He was infinite. And I was not.

His fingers brushed against me like flames and leaves and so many rose petals that seemed to never whither. He washed me as a mother would her kitten; soft and slow and agonizingly pleasant. He always managed to entrance me with those hands of his. When they ran through my hair to rinse it of the stress of the day I sighed, and leaned into his touch. I felt his amusement even though I had closed my eyes. His cold breath ran along the back of my neck, and I knew he was smiling.

Once I was cleaned and dried, he set me on the edge of the bed. His fingers drew lines across my skin as he clothed me in soft, white muslin. It felt cool against my skin... like snow melting on the soles of your shoes. They way Sebastian's fingers lingered upon my thighs spoke more words than he could with his voice alone. I spread them slightly, inviting him to lean closer. He did, and I pulled him near. My hands fell to the apples of his cheeks, caressing the soft skin like feathers falling from the breezes of spring. 

"Come here."

I muttered in a voice I reserved only for him, lips hovering above a mouth full of hellfire. I wanted to taste him; to wallow in that burning until the very bindings of me snapped apart and fell into him. He gave me a second chance at life, and so I would do the same for him. I blamed him not for his wicked nature, nor for the way in which I knew he would rip these feelings from me. I felt myself whither away as that mouth finally collided with mine; surging against me and setting fire to the very depths of my soul. My shoulders raised in wanting as I leaned into him. I knew he could feel the flames licking at his throat... knew he could smell the embers that seared the seeds growing into every fiber of my being. I knew that time was a delicate mistress, but I wanted this to last an eternity. Eternity was a fluid concept. It existed only for those who would not care to see it. I knew it would never come for me. This wouldn't last forever.

I gasped as our lips parted. I could feel tremors already starting within me. They eroded at me silently... gently coaxing me to submit; to allow this creature to envelop me. Our tongues dipped together like the tides the moon brought on. They ran over and under... sliding over teeth and lip. His lips gripped at mine almost lovingly... so soft and enchanting and warm. My fingers found their way into the black ebony that was his hair, and I whimpered when he pulled away to sprinkle kisses over ear and neck and throat. I nuzzled myself into the line of his hair, breathing into him as his firm grip tightened over slim hip and waist... pulling at the threads that strung me together.

"I am mad to want you so."

I whispered with wetted lips into the pale shell of his ear; voice soft and small and breathless.

"Yes."

He spoke to the sweat that began to prickle on my jaw, lapping at the saltiness.

"You are foolish..."

I breathed harder into his shoulder as he rose from the floor to clutch at me, dipping me gently into the softness of the duvet.

"and beautiful."

He settled me among the stark white, climbing atop my waiting figure.

He raised my hips to meet his, pressing himself against me. I crooned a low whisper, wrapping myself around him as he kissed lower onto my collar. His lips felt like fire... until they left me and that flame was snuffed out and became cold under his breath. This happened over and over again as he sowed a path down my heated skin. He paused where the buttons of my nightshirt began, chuckling as he started their undoing.

"What a waste of time."

His voice was a still, quiet birdsong as he bit at the sensitive juncture of my neck; a place he knew I liked to be touched. I clutched to him... drawing sweet, breathy gasps through my kiss swollen lips. 

His eyes began to swim with mirth, and I drew hot breaths as they bore into mine with an unparalleled intensity. His hair fell around his face in the most endearing way. And those lips... god, those lips. I never wanted them to leave me. I pulled him in once more, my stomach filling with butterflies as I kissed him deeply. He finally reached the last button of that white cotton fabric, and my body was exposed to him again. 

I folded into him as his tongue drew near to my aching. My hands caressed this form of his languidly and lovingly. His breath felt so real as it spread across my hip bones... though I knew he was a monster; a beautiful thing. He was right, I was foolish. But he was beautiful. He growled low and soft and featherlight, and that sound pooled into the depths of me; collecting in my abdomen as my lust for him grew. He was the picture of perfect evil; a terrible but delightful thing. I knew I would want him no matter the odds or way in which he would appear to me. He was still Sebastian... still my butter. Still my demon.

His eyes flickered as he knelt to taste my wanting. His tongue was hot and wet as it lathed against the blush of my tip. My hips seemed to tilt as of their own volition. Thighs spread wider and hands gripped tighter onto his silken locks. They spilled over the white expanse of hip and thigh and belly as he began to take my length into his mouth. He took me with an agonizing pace; licking me as he did so. I whimpered at this terrible slowness... but he only gripped my hips harder; determined to reign his wish over all else. 

I let my head fall back with the closing of my eyes. His touches were tremulous and tender as I touched him... trusted him. My hands wandered over his shoulders. I knew he would be having me slow tonight. I moaned at the thought; my voice betraying any wishes to stay quiet. I felt his lips wrap around the base of me and a groaned low in my throat. He felt soft and warm and so, so unbearably hot. His nails embedded themselves within my hips as he ground them up to meet his wet heat. 

He pushed my hips up as if I were the one thrusting them; his grip unholy and wonderful. 

"Oh..."

My head lolled from side to side; cock twitching and voice begging for more. 

"Sebastian..."

I could almost feel him smirk against me as he thrust my aching arousal into his mouth. I could sense the gentleness of him eroding as he began to bob his head. I continued fucking his mouth as he released me, gripping black clad nails into the skin of my belly. I arched into him, losing myself in the tide of his breathing. 

"Ah... yes. Yes..."

I whispered into the quiet rocking, hands now desperately clinging onto whatever part of him I could reach. Pleasure continued to flow to me in waves of undulating hips and lewd, rigorous breath. He moaned against me, and I knew he would slip off of me soon. I whimpered once more, eyes glued to the way he took my cock. It was almost too much, to see where we were joined and he was lapping at my consciousness. 

He slipped himself off my prick, and it bobbed in his wake; begging for more of him. I begged for more of him with eyes that I was sure were glassy and pleading. I felt myself already twitching and aching to be filled by him and with him. I turned myself onto my front, exhibiting myself for him; ready to be worked. I bowed my back and spread my thighs... just the way I knew he liked it. I coaxed him over me, and his warmth enveloped me in a blanket of softness. He was now in a state of undress as I shivered at the touch. He was gorgeous, ethereal. I wished for him to erode at the blackness that was my past... wanted him desperately to make me forget and to be lost within the pleasure he gave me. And he gave it to me... sucking on the back of my neck as three, pale fingers prodded at my lips. 

I took them into my mouth, rolling my tongue about each one in turn; suckling like a newborn babe. I was greedy and wanted to taste more of him. 

"Good... there."

He whispered into slick skin, running those fingers across my lips before taking them from me. My head hung low as I tried to calm my breath. I knew if I kept on in this tsunami that was building, I would last all of three seconds once he was encased in me. 

I felt him prod at my entrance and couldn't help but push back onto it. The intrusion breached me, and I gasped; arching again.

"You are so lovely."

He murmured sweetly into the delicate shell of my ear. 

As he sunk further into me, I sunk further into the featherlight softness of the bed below me until the only thing that was raised were my hips. I thrust myself into the soft, slicked digit; wanting nothing more than to be filled and fucked and kissed until I couldn't feel a damn thing but him. He understood, stretching me until all three were packed nicely inside. He thrust those fingers into me, avoiding the very spot I needed him to hit. I writhed beneath him; a wretched fawning of innocence that I never seemed to be able to shake. He pushed that pleasure into me... spreading me open in the most endearing way. He was as gentle as he could be whilst still maintaining that teasing gesture. He beckoned such high whimpers from me as my hips circled to meet that crushing necessity. 

That teasing heat abandoned me, and I started to shake. Hips wriggled and hands fisted in the bed linens as I felt him draw nearer. He covered my back with his warm body, looming over me like a soul begotten and ready to flee its host. I felt him align his heat to my twitching entrance and I bit back what was bound to be a cry of frustration.

"Relax... succumb to me."

His heated words were rare and made tremors rush through me as I leaned into them. He pushed himself further, but it wasn't enough. I needed the whole of him inside of me... filling me as only he could. I needed him to take control for only a moment, so that I may bask in the wonder that was his pulsing, beating pleasure. 

As we began our connection, my breath sped to match his heartbeat. I felt it beating against my chest... and whether it was real or feigned mattered little to me. It was proof that he was alive, and I was too. His hands clung to my fragile waist, keeping me still so that he may push himself further into me. My breaths were stars and dewey grasses... they corroded at my lungs which contracted to fill themselves with clouds and rain and wind. He felt so good and hot and hard against me, and I writhed to welcome him. 

It did not hurt. I allowed his intrusion gratefully; nuzzling the back of my head into his throat as I keened for the loss of an innocence I never acquired. When he was finally sheathed in me, I felt his marked hand wander to clutch mine. The other stayed firm on my skin. My gasps were reduced to deft panting; a roaring heat creeping its way through my every being. It was as if the sun was rising to bring life to snow encrusted grounds again. I felt my muscles relax and twitch beneath Sebastian as he continued his tantalizing pace. 

He finally rested inside of me, waiting to begin that wild thrusting I craved. 

"Ah... god, Sebastian. You're going to tear me apart."

I cooed, reaching my free hand up to briefly clutch at his neck. 

"And so I will, little one..."

He gave me a shallow thrust and I cried out loud. It was all too good, too heated... too gentle. 

"in time."

I knocked my hips against his, desperate to feel that shockwave of pleasure again and again. He drew a shallow grunt into the curvature of my ear, letting his breath ghost along my neck and shoulder. His fingers buzzed and danced along creamy white skin. And thus, he began the dance. 

I felt every inch of him as he rocked nice and slow into me. Chills of pleasure rolled over my blushing skin, and I succumbed to his slowness. His strong, slick torso would roll over the softness of my back with each caress of brushing hip. I melted under his caress, legs spreading and arse pressing into his perfection. But I wanted those hips to bruise... wanted them to pound each chill and wrack and sob out of me. I reached above me to pull at his hair. My grip was gentle but steady as I tugged him over me. 

His tongue lathed at my neck and shoulder. His wonderfully wicked hands grasped harder onto soft, supple skin. I moaned high and breathless... voice laced with lust and reveling in sin. His slow, deep thrusting quickly turned into a vigorous pounding in which he would draw himself almost completely from me before pushing himself against me all at once. A constant stream of praises left my lips as he filled me again and again, abiding to my every wish. 

"Ah... oh, yes... yes."

My whispers were swallowed up by his presence and taken away with the tide of his relentless thrusting. I rolled my hips up into him as that unmatched pleasure grew and grew. I wanted him to push against that spot deeply hidden... wanted him to know just how good I could feel. He knew this body better than his own, I was sure... and thus, I knew he was teasing me. The thought of this made me arch high and toss my head back onto his strong, sturdy shoulder. I had no order for him to change, for I wanted him to decide what I felt. Knowing that he would was maddening and wonderful. 

His black tipped fingers slid lower to grab at my thighs; relinquishing all control from me. I let him, losing my thoughts in the way he ground he base of him into me wth every thrust. I felt his bollocks against me... his breath in my ear and his thrusts wild. 

"Here, child... just the way you like it."

He fucked me nice and hard; deeper and faster with every moan that slipped past my teeth and tongue and lip. He knew how to please every single inch of me. And he did. 

"Ah, ah, ah- ah! Yes... right there, right there!"

He finally began to crush that bead that rested beneath my clenching walls and circling hips. I wailed, unable to forbid my pleasure from becoming a tangible thing as my voice rose. He hummed; a butterfly's wing. His voice was a turbulent ocean in which I would gladly drown in. I responded to his every move and thought as he did to mine. I cried out, passionate for every knock of his hips. I felt my hunger insatiable and desperate. He let go of my thighs, instead grasping at my heaving ribcage and undulating waist. We began to plateau just beneath that great hight of pleasure. 

We rocked into one another, bodies hungry and lungs expanding to take in as much breath as we let out. I began to sob with pleasure and he tortured me. He slowed himself, bringing our figures to kneel upon the white ocean that was the bed we soiled with sweat. Seated in his lap, his cock drove deeper than before and I arched like a bow, arms reaching behind me to grasp at his shoulders and neck as my head dropped against his collar. 

"Ahh!"

He gripped violently at my hips, coaxing me to rock them into his. I did... back pressed against his torso as it rubbed like a flickering flame over it. The sensuality of the moment washed over me in a wave of dizziness. I gasped into him; relentless and lost. We were reduced to a slow rocking; not nearly fast enough to complete us, but neither slow enough to soften each blow to my insides. He growled, nipping at my ear and neck and shoulder. I shuddered, fingers running along the skin of his arms as they held me. 

"Oh, Sebastian." 

I whimpered into that wonderful storm of pleasure.

"Kiss me... kiss me."

I breathed out; a desperate wish. 

His tongue rolled into mine, and it was as if a tidal wave crashed over me. His lips caressed mine with mirth. They were devilish... but it felt as close to heaven as I thought I might ever get. I moaned deeply into him, hips bouncing faster and hands grasping tighter. It was coming. That overwhelming heat was going to suffocate me in darkness... and I was ready for it as I kissed off his lips to whimper,

"I can't... I can't."

My head knocked back and forth upon his shoulder. My back was arching again and again. Each thrust hit that spot inside me over and over. Tears of pleasure sprouted from my irises and smothered against the skin of his neck. His fingers ran over the juncture where thigh met hip and down that cleft to grip under my thighs. He kneaded the suppleness of skin; each caress unfurling in splendor. 

"Hold tight to me."

He offered, thrusting harder up into my greedy passage. He brought me to the brink and I whined, eyes screwing shut as I braced myself against what was coming. He had full control over when I would come, I knew that. He was a skilled and seductive creature. He kept me at the dam's edge for a few, well aimed thrusts before he slammed me back down onto my front, pounding ruthlessly into the ether that I was becoming. 

I screamed, body writhing and twisting as my vision blurred and thoughts scrambled into the mess that was, and only was Sebastian. Sobs began wracking my body as I became overwhelmed. I couldn’t think… couldn’t feel anything but the demon. I felt him nuzzling at my nape and shoulder and sweat-slick neck. I allowed such waves to wash over my being. I surrendered, succumb… and submit to him completely.

"There you go."

I bit at the sheets, legs spreading as far as I could manage whilst still keeping him as deep inside as possible. 

"That's it.”

I lost myself to that violent orgasm. White hot ribbons of cum shot from my already leaking tip and I shuddered again, gasping and clutching and burning. My knees slipped over the sheets as I writhed and bucked. Tears dripped like blood over my cheeks; a beautiful unraveling. His fingers stroked along my back almost lovingly as he kept his pounding constant. He was terrible... and wonderful. 

"Good boy."

That name... God that name he gave me was too much… and he knew it as my pleasure crested again. I came a second time; eyes wide and mouth slack against the overwhelming pleasure. He thrust himself as deep as he could go, grinding the base of him ruthlessly against my exhausted entrance. I felt him writhe and he came then, too. His heat filled me as I thrust my last few spasms onto him. His brooding darkness seemed to grow for a moment as he growled into the nape of my neck. It took me a moment to realize he bit me. I gasped as much as my breathless lungs could manage… and soon, that darkness was gone. I continued to sob in silence; slumped down onto soiled sheets.

The cold he left on my back was infinite.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I hoped it would rain that day.'

I awoke exhausted; the light flooding in through the lacy curtains harsh and unpleasant. I shifted, wanting nothing more than to sink deeper into the bed, and into sleep its self. I could see Sebastian’s shadow moving about behind my eyelids… could sense his brooding darkness. It was comforting. His voice was even more so when he spoke,

“It is time to rise, young master.”

I resisted the urge to reach blindly for him… to pull him down next to me and order him to forget whatever menial tasks had arisen for the day. But I didn’t. I still had some dignity left. I forced my eyes to open for that overbearing brightness, stretching at the way sweat had cooled on my skin and stuck the sheets to me.

I sat up as the sounds of Sebastian’s rustling for clothes became prominent. I sighed. My chest was tight, and I let out a cough when the air had been expelled. I felt him glance to me, checking to make sure I was alright. I was, and he knew it. My asthma was but a minor issue. It only caused problems when my physical exertion had become too much… and with Sebastian around, it didn’t matter anyways. I cleared my throat as quietly as I could. I wanted not to disturb the solemn silence in the room. I wanted the chaos to stay away… wanted to remain serene and relaxed in the presence of my butler.

He brought fourth the shine of blue silk; a crushing wave from the seas of a seamstress’ hands. He set that glimmering cloth onto the bed beside where I now sat; legs hanging over the side as my feet didn’t quite touch the floor. His hands began to unbutton my nightshirt. They pulled each little clasp of ivory free with a quick flick of his long, slender fingers. I marveled at him… silent. He was so far from being human, yet he lived this way seamlessly. He fooled those he met with his breath and heartbeat… and the way he could make blood rush to his cheeks and warm his features. But I knew what he was. I couldn’t forget, and I wouldn’t. He was never as human to me as he was to anyone else. For his eyes flashed only for me… I alone was allowed to see the way those black tendrils of smoke would curl around my ankles, or pool around his hands when he let that guise slip for a single moment.

I shivered as my skin was exposed to cold air; goosebumps rising upon the pale flesh of my arms.

“What’s the schedule for today?”

He draped me in clean, white muslin. The ruffles of the shirt brushed against my wrists and neck… caressing my skin softly.

“You have a meeting with that gentleman Louis Andrè regarding further expanses of Funtom at noon. After that you have violin, and a lesson on English history by none other than myself, my lord.”

I couldn’t help the slight upturning of my lips as he draped those oceanic shorts and jacket over my soft, quaint figure.

“Whatever gave you the right to become a tutor anyways, Sebastian?”

I couldn’t help but tease.

“I do believe it was when you entrusted me with your well being, sir. A young mind such as yours needs stimuli… otherwise you would become bored and act out, no?”

I could hear the smile playing within his voice. it washed over me as the now pleasant sunlight did. I allowed myself that moment.

“Hmm.”

I hummed, leaning back onto my hands as he began dressing my feet in socks and shoes,

“I suppose. Though I do only hire the best. You are most equipped, aren’t you?”

His gaze was impish as it locked with mine.

“Of course.”

Mousier Andrè was the typical, egotistical frenchman. His thick accent hung in the air like silk as we discussed opening future Funtom stores in Paris and the surrounding areas. Our talk was about at stimulating as watching paint dry or grass grow, but I knew it was necessary. I felt my blood thicken at what I was begotten to. I simply smiled with my teeth full of a tiredness I kept beneath them. I blinked back the haze that my eyes begot to push forth; speaking in a language I never question learning. But my voice lacked the romance of it’s native tongue… it had no space for the love of France to bury its self in. I breathed in deep, listening… trying to remind myself that my lungs still had to work. Beneath those roofs and walls of plaster it was hard for me to remember that I was alive.

I could breathe easily and effortlessly as gentle breezes when he left; unbuttoning the suffocating clasps upon my shirt collar. My gaze wandered to the window, falling upon light hewn from a happiness I could not reach. I existed for the most menial and specific things… the whole of my motivation hindered from hatred and a fear that has long since dried on my cheeks. The sun seemed to blanket its self in a tumultuous covering of cloud, and I watched; fascinated.

I hoped it would rain that day.

Violin came next, as Sebastian had said that morning. He handed me a particularly beautiful yet difficult piece he had most undoubtedly wrote. He turned to sit in front of me as if he were my audience. His gaze was ethereal and dewey… wine red eyes swimming with an emotion that I’d only ever seen from him. It looked to tell me that I were his muse and scholar; a body with a talent full of passion and purpose. I supposed that I only ever had purpose when I played his music.

The notes set before me were legible, and I could almost hear those crisp, high notes whirring through the air as I made sense of their patterns. I could feel him watching me as I made sure of my starting note; positioning my fingers in their correct dexterity before pushing down on the strings and dragging the bow across them. That first note broke the silence in a selling burst of sound as it frosted my awareness to its utterance. I felt my eyes closing briefly as I diluted my thoughts of the room and focused only on my strings and bow. I felt them to be an extension of myself; as if they bound themselves to me until I could not tell where I ended and the wood began.

I read the notes fluently and patently. The song began to take to the shape of a ship hewn from moonlight rocking over uproarious waves… of a tree struck by lightning or a child taking his first steps over tickling grass and under glowing skies. It wavered and turned into many silver fish bathing in crystal-clear waters before detonating into a crescendo that sent it spinning over frosted mountains and cracked, caked deserts. There was a rest wherein I allowed myself to catch the breath I had been holding, before I plunged into the climactic height of resonance that filled the void of the room with attachment and sorrow and the slightest hint of trepidation.

I felt my core fill with gaiety as I immersed myself within the music I was creating, and once it began to slow into a low, steady ritardando I felt my awareness come back into the room that now seemed to be emptying its self from sound. I held out the last note, hoping to drive it into the heart of whomever was listening… hoping to tell him all that I could not speak with words. I let my hands drop to my sides, and heard the echo die in my wake.

It took me an immeasurable amount of time for my ability to look up into those crimson eyes to return… and once I did, I saw them to be swimming in overwhelm. I was reminded of what he was as his pupils flashed into two alarming reptilian slits, before returning to their warm and gentle gaze. I felt my breath catch in my throat as he stood.

“Very good, my lord.”

It was strange to hear his voice pierce the air after it had been caressed by his music… our music. He continued,

“You have almost found the perfect balance of emotion and rhythm, and your ability to read has far advanced these past few weeks. I dare say that you are nearly a true musician, now.”

What he meant by that, I was unsure… for his tone seemed to speak of my soul, and not of what it created.

I couldn’t find my voice. I felt as if the shining wood in my hands now served the purpose of my vocal chords, and my throat felt dry.

“Play it again, if you will… practice makes perfect.”

He stepped forward a bit, allowing his fingers to simply brush my cheek with a tenderness that was both wonderful and confounding. It was then that I noticed that I had begun to shake. He was such a beast that I felt the need to both cower before him and reign my will over all else… lest he tear away at the walls I had been creating around me for years. He sparked such a wanting in me, and I longed for him to touch me more. But I pushed such conflicting emotions down into my depths so that I would not have to feel the way his breath lingered on my lips after he kissed me.

His diverging aura left me as he sat back once more, and I lifted my bow again.

It did rain, finally… when I was finally settled amongst white sheets and stale air; willing my eyes to close in sleep, and rest. Though the soft sound of rainfall striking the glass of the window pane was lost on my exhausted ears. For the first time in a long while, I longed for the sun to come back… even if the only purpose would be for it to hide behind clouds of gray and white. 

I turned away from the sound.

I always seemed to fall into a nonsensical sleep; as if my mind refused to admit it had been tortured, and sometimes, still was. I resisted daydreaming in the light of day, yet at night I somehow always seemed to forget that nightmares were dreams too. My thoughts whirred in a shimmering dexterity as I willed my hardest to avoid the terrors night would always bring. I longed for a fulfilling sleep in which I wound’t need Sebastian by my side… when my only necessary comfort would be the fact that I had the chance to wake up in the morning. And I was sad that I wasn’t grateful for that opportunity any longer. 

I didn’t know it then; but this was the beginning of a flurry of regret and questioning that had begun to build between my ribs and heart. I didn’t want to have to realize that the battle was pointless without the knight around to revel in the dragon’s death. It was profound that making business with a demon had been planting the seeds of reason within a garden full of roses made of ash… hewn from starlight and dew. I wanted to sink further into what I was forgetting. I needed to remember that regardless of what I did or who I would become, making those monsters suffer was infinite and necessary.

I didn’t call for Sebastian that night, even when the thunder started.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I suddenly knew very well what it was I had been trying to say.
> 
> It was so obvious and clear, I didn’t understand why it hadn’t come to me before. I felt my throat tighten as if it were warning against a flood in which I had no power to desiccate. Gripping Sebastian’s hair tightly, I pulled his mouth from mine with a gentle yet prodigious pressure; allowing room for me to catch my breath and for him to clear his head. He looked at me with such curiosity I felt I had to satiate his need to understand me. I wasn’t sure even I understood me. But with every second that past, my need to let these words spill from me grew and grew, until it was as tall as a mountain and as vast as the seas in which I would drown in.'

Hallow’s Eve was swiftly approaching. The leaves went from changing to changed… and the last bit of warm summer air was coaxed to follow. The turbulence of winter would soon blanket the Earth in a covering of white within the coming months, and I loathed October for it’s indifference to the cold. It represented the change that brought about frigid fingers and constricted lungs. It waited for me, and when it came it would drag out the period in which the air was neither welcoming nor uncompanionable. Though as much as I express my detest towards this month, I also felt it calming; as if it were a rest within a populous page of music. I could not say I hated it, for at least the propagated cold allowed me to feel something other than enervated.

It was raining again. Of course it was. 

I did not deny my infatuation with storms, and their inklings of mischief; their life-bringing sources. Their uproarious and occasionally abysmal nature sparked the clandestine sentiments I held for a certain person living within this household. I knew it to be wrong, as I have expressed many a time before… but I could’t help but wallow in such an enormity. This feeling was prodigious; so massive that I felt I would crumble under it’s sublime burden, and I wasn’t sure I would mind if I did.

I didn’t want to be in love.  So deeply in love that I faltered in the tumultuous enigma that was Sebastian Michaelis… that was the butler I gave name and purpose to under the beacon of the moon and stars.  But I was.  I was madly and deeply under a spell as terrible and delicate as the rain and thunder that began to crash bitterly down around me. I stood under the protective dryness of my mansion, by the window, as I always did when it rained.

Elizabeth was scheduled to visit that day.

During a walk in which my fiancé and I were incased in rose petals falling from the manor’s garden, her aura seemed to change from cheery to something I’d never before experienced from her.

“Ciel, this is lovely.”

Her cheeks were tinted a rosy pink.

“I’m glad it is to your satisfaction, my Lady.”

I nodded at her, and my smile was as cryptic - I’m sure - as they come.

She stopped walking, then… staring at me with a sort of trepidation upon her dainty and girlish features. Her gaze hovered over the whole of me, and it was as if she was scrutinizing the very depths of my soul in which was shattered. She reached for my hand from where no soul could coax a caress as she stepped farther towards me. Her touch was a sudden burst of warm autumn air amongst the chilling frost of an impending winter. She laced her fingers within my gloved grasp; a gesture she had never once attempted before. I waited with an inkling of wonderment and anticipation. She placed her other hand so softly upon the cold flesh of my cheek that I wondered if she had even met with it.

And then, without a hint of her usual timidity, she kissed me.

Her lips were much more slight than Sebastian’s… her energy far less resolute. The kiss didn’t last long, and it contained none of the extreme passion or greed Sebastian’s kisses met and left me with. I suppose it was nice. Her lips were so soft and her expression was so calm… I almost felt guilty upon seeing it, for I had not closed my eyes as she had. When she pulled away, the air between us was frozen. She took a step back, her flushed cheeks now stained a shade of deep crimson. I held her hand tightly in mine, for I did not want her to let it go. I wanted to comfort her.

Because I hadn’t felt a thing.

She must’ve seen the repentance glimmering within my visible eye, for an expression of contrition unfolded upon her lovely face. She quickly looked to the ground, ashamed.

“You didn’t like it?”

I quickly closed the distance she had brought between us, lifting her chin with the gentle crook of my finger.

“No, no. Lizzie, please… that’s not it.”

My voice was hushed as it seemed to writhe into the frigid air. I pulled her into another kiss, and this time I closed my eyes and pressed my lips harder against hers. I pulled away just as quickly as I had initiated it.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

I leant forward to whispered into the delicate shell of her ear… hoping that somehow my voice could clear the enigma that it was creating. I knew I could not articulate to her what was so illicit and turbulent, though I hoped still that she understood. I needed her to understand. I needed her to understand so badly that my heart had been ripped out and stolen by a beast so fierce that I was forced to hide my bleeding chest.

She looked at me, I’m sure, the way I must have looked at Sebastian; with fear and love and such an enormous amount of emotion that one would be lucky to decipher it.

Her voice did not shake when she spoke,

“Then don’t.”

She left earlier than usual.

I’m sure she was shaken, and I couldn’t help but feel the guilt that burned its way through my stomach walls to push its self up into the knot which was tightening around me. But though I felt remorse for the incertitude of the situation - which I did take full responsibility for - I could not help but to feel such a tremendous weight lift from my shoulders when that large oaken door had finally closed behind my cousin. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, for I did. I loved her to the best of my crippled ability. I loved her as a friend… as family. But that wasn’t how one was supposed to love whom they were bound to marry. That wasn’t how I was supposed to love her.

Later, I sat with a cup of tea near a warm, comforting fire that Sebastian had lit. My gaze was heavy as it was lost within those flickering flames. It had been cold, that day… much more so than the rest of the month had been. My mind was no longer being kind to me, for I had begun to brood over the way I felt so stuck and helpless within the life I had created. It was foolish, and I knew that. I had been the one to decide upon revenge as my last tactic for hope… and it was undoubtedly my fault that it might’ve ended up to be the wrong one. I could not say I regretted anything about my life thus far, but I did indeed suffer feelings of falling adrift to my atmosphere. I suppose that it why I was always grappling for control and composure.

I felt Sebastian’s presence as he moved about the room, tidying up after the day’s visit with Elizabeth. Sebastian was superlative. So much so that it sometimes felt as a threat… as if he wanted his domination and supremacy to always seep through the cracks within me; wherever I was lacking thought or emotion. He was the superior creature in every way, and we both knew it to be true.

“Master, are you warm enough?”

His voice pierced the silence with ease, and it floated as clouds across the room to me.

“Nearly.”

I could hear him approach me as he drew nearer, and his aura eluded to me more than I knew he would ever say with his tongue.

“Is there anything I can do to make you warmer?”

I shivered as his breath touched my ear, and I realized that I did not recall him getting that close.

It was maddening; the way in which he teased me… hovered over me. The way he coaxed such wickedness from me wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t that I did not want him, for I did. I only wanted this unfairness to end. I only wanted to be able to be near him without remembering that he would one day be the end of me. But if my fate could not be subject to change - which it certainly wasn’t - I suppose ending in his hands wasn’t a terrible way to go. I wanted those who made me suffer to get the same in return, and I wanted Sebastian to get what he bargained for. A deal was a deal.

It would have been wonderful if it were as simple as that. But it wasn’t, and I suppose an inkling of me knew that it never had been.

“Perhaps.”

I dared to look at him as I set my teacup back down upon the small table beside my chair. His eyes were fiendish and mischievous as they locked with mine, and his gaze stayed there; wandering through the depths of my irises. He drew up beside me, bending to fish a blanket out from a box that lay under the table. He did not hand it to me, instead opting to saunter behind the chair in which I was seated to wrap its warmth around my figure. 

His hands lingered far longer than was necessary.

His figure did not move when those fingers left me, and I could feel his ethereal possessiveness over my shoulder as he stooped to nuzzle into the nape of my neck. Those hands were shepherded back up to my shoulders as he gave my warming skin a diaphanous kiss. I sighed as I leant into him.

“Is this suitable, my lord?”

He inquired as he righted himself; not a hair misplaced nor a glimmer of misconduct or devilment in the surface of his stare.

“It depends. Are you speaking of my temperature or sentiments?”

He smirked at my pronouncement. I knew he enjoyed these maneuvers of ours… these coquettish moments in which I knew we both were calculating what would come of us. This expression of his held presentiment, and it grew into vivification as I held my gaze steady. I was in no state of mind to tease or to be teased, and I found myself becoming frustrated.

“Whichever one you would like me to speak of, my lord.”

I scoffed,

“Stop that, Sebastian. I am in no mood for your antics as of now.”

“Oh, is that so?”

He looked almost hurt; a feigned expression begot to blight me, I was sure. He continued,

“Antics, you call them? I could hardly say so.”

I wrapped myself farther into the soft, woolen blanket he had offered me, my vexation growing by the moment. Why must he be so quick?

He chuckled slightly at my refusal to give him an answer as he moved to knell beside me.

“Am I at liberty to ask what is minding you?”

I sighed ever so slightly, though I knew he still could hear it. I did not reply for some time, hoping that the subject might change or perhaps that there would be some accident with the servants to free me from the trap that was his gentle stare. But the inelegant help had already retired for the night, and I was left alone with him.

I could not muster the gallantry to coax the words I had been mulling from my mouth, so I spoke a different truth instead,

“I’m quite exhausted, Sebastian. Perhaps it would be wise to retire for the night.”

I could not see if his eyes shimmered that unholy crimson.

“Perhaps you are right.”

He carried me up the stairwell, and I let my head fall to his chest. It felt so nice to be embraced like that. It was one of the only times I ever felt comfortable in being available… in being vulnerable. My bath was done for the night and so he took me straight to bed, laying me down amongst the stark white.

I suddenly thought it very urgent that I somehow elude to him what my mind had been torturing me with. My thoughts were daggers that tore away at me until I wanted nothing but to drown in sleep, or better yet, him. I felt my words catching in my throat and so I latched my hand to his wrist, begging him silently not to go… not to leave me here alone with my thoughts that were so horrible to me. I needed to be protected in that moment, and that was his job, wasn’t it? I knew he understood my silent plea as I felt a current run roguishly through the mark in my eye.

His gaze fell on me as those rose petals had in the garden earlier, and I felt my blood begin to warm.

“Wait.”

I whispered,

“Please…”

I didn’t know what I was begging for… didn’t know what I was trying to tell him. He must’ve sensed this disarray, for he nodded carefully before sitting gently upon the mattress beside me; as if he were attempting not to startle a bird whom had just broken its wing in his attempt to extricate it. And my heart was beating just as fast as a frightened, hurt bird, I was sure.

He leaned down, his hungry eyes searching over every single, blessed inch of me before they got too close for me to see them anymore, and he kissed me. I let my own eyes flutter shut as his mouth moved in tandem against mine. I found myself clutching to the back of his head; hands fishing through his ebony hair as my other still held him densely. My fingers fisted in his locks and I pulled him nearer; forgetting for a moment that I still had to breathe. His kiss was grand and concupiscent as he dropped his jaw to taste more of me.

I felt a great burning start within me. I hadn’t felt this lecherous fire before, yet it grew up into my ribcage and made it harder to breathe. I felt as though I wanted to kick something, hard… but not out of anger. It was more a feeling of exasperation than anything else, as it wound its way up through my throat and around my tongue until I simply had to pull away.

I suddenly knew very well what it was I had been trying to say.

It was so obvious and clear, I didn’t understand why it hadn’t come to me before. I felt my throat tighten as if it were warning against a flood in which I had no power to desiccate. Gripping Sebastian’s hair tightly, I pulled his mouth from mine with a gentle yet prodigious pressure; allowing room for me to catch my breath and for him to clear his head. He looked at me with such curiosity I felt I had to satiate his need to understand me. I wasn’t sure even I understood me. But with every second that past, my need to let these words spill from me grew and grew, until it was as tall as a mountain and as vast as the seas in which I would drown in.

This feeling was so incredibly great as the realization of its existence washed over me as a wave of terrible yet wonderful elation and dread. I silently cursed my own heart for giving in to such a thing, yet I blessed my soul for allowing me to find it. My soul knew what it wanted, and I think a part of me knew that Sebastian could sense it, as well.

He nuzzled into the juncture of creamy skin where neck met shoulder, breathing his heavy breath upon my tingling nerves. I reached both hands up to candle the soft curvature of his crown, baring more of my skin for him to devour.

“Sebastian.”

My voice came out in a timid whisper; as if I were afraid to voice such a enormous cognizance.

“Hmm?”

He growled into my skin, beginning to bite ever so softly at the red marks he had just kissed off of.

I could feel my heart race, and I knew he could too. 

Something was changing.

I knew it was time to let the dam break. I paused for a moment, contemplating the tone in which I would use to say it. I then realized that no tone other than a genuine one would have been appropriate… so I stopped stalling and finally spoke,

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Time seemed still along with my wildly beating heart as I felt him pause his ministrations, and the darkness of him swelled. I didn’t allot to him enough time to reply as I felt a hotness begin to prickle at my eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

I whispered into his ear,

“I’m so sorry.”

My voice had only been loud enough for him to hear, and yet he still did not reply. I didn’t want to see the expression that I was sure was plaguing his face at the moment.

I was sure he was angry. I was angry. I was angry with myself, and with him. I was so deeply angry with my incredibly human heart, that I blamed it now for the cause of all my sufferings. If I were born a demon, perhaps I wouldn’t have felt the need to turn to one. If I could only rip my humanity from me, perhaps I wouldn’t have to feel for something that could not in return.

I had already banished enough of my empathy, and I was sure that Sebastian lusted me enough for him to call it love… for he wanted the whole of me the way I wanted the whole of him. But it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t have been the same… for his heart in which I hoped had once been pure, was now black and crippled and past the point of saving. Even if demons had all once been as human as the one under him, it still would never change the fact that he could never return to grace.

“Say something.”

I panicked, fingers clutching tighter and breath becoming heavier,

“Say something!”

That prickling behind my eyes grew into a blurry mess of tears I hadn’t realized were there. No matter how hard I assayed for them to stay put and to not spill, they did as a great dripping of diamonds. My shoulders shook and my breath sped up.

I began to sob.

“Demon…”

I cursed him through my teeth. It was a word I had never once before used to insult, but it seemed as though he was now something both beautiful, horrible and wonderful, yet unattainable all the same. 

I somehow felt that I could not reach him still; no matter how hard I pulled on his hair.

“demon… you demon!”

My voice was staring to fail me as it gave way to the rasp that my crying had coated its edges in,

“You’re a demon.”

It was both a statement to remind and to slander… though it seemed to be arbitrary, seeing as what I had just confessed would most definitely stick to my lashes once they were dry again.

HIs arms wrapped around me then, as if, though he knew what I said to be true, he also wished to comfort me. The gesture only made my tears run faster down my face as he moved to lick them away. I knew my actions to be childish and malapropos, but I still clutched to him harder than ever as he reigned kisses down upon me.

“Indeed, you are correct. I am a demon.”

He whispered to me,

“And thus, I am afraid I can only serve you to the best of my ability.”

His hands wandered to my waist, and he held me.

“And I am afraid that I have forgotten what it’s like to feel love.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'It hadn’t before, but now it hurt.'

His hands clutched harder to me as my relentless sobbing paused. I shuddered in his arms, looking to his face for some scrap of comfort to cling to or to give. I shook my head ever so slightly; brows knitting in a sadness in which would always remain absolute. He was so inhumanly handsome, especially within the light of the candlelit room. The moon hung high in the sky and illuminated his face in an unearthly glow. His expression seemed to be one of slight searching and sorrow… as if he were trying to define what exactly was becoming of this… of us.

I caressed the side of his face, brushing away a disobedient hair that hand’t been clinging to his skin a moment before. He seemed so incredibly human in that moment, as he summoned up a hand to stroke gently along the bone of my jaw. I could see the churning within his eyes, and it frightened me. He was a powerful and inhumane being; one that would tear apart the very strings of me in an instant if he so pleased. I loved to be in some sort of sickish control over a creature like that… no matter how dubious such an endeavor was. But in that moment, he looked nothing short of dissonant. I sighed a breathy respiration, closing my eyes briefly to hide the sight of my only anchor sinking.

It now was very clear that this game now had different rules. What they were, was another topic indeed; one that would take quite a bit of appraisal to decipher. I suppose the very compounds of our relationship had stayed the same since the beginning; I was a determined, traumatized boy in need of salvation and something to grapple my hatred to… and Sebastian was a lustful, obedient demon and servant whom acted on whims whenever it was allotted. I was still grappling, and he was still lusting. The only thing that had changed was the severity and depth of such elements. And, I suppose, the priorities in which they came. But souls such as these were always subject to change, and I was still forever searching for a brain to sink my very last bullet into.

I opened my mouth to speak, but for once in my life I had nothing to say. And so I kissed him deeply. My hands clutched desperately to his neck and into his hair. I felt him shift over me until I lay snug among pillows, and arched under his touch. His heat was inflammatory and irrepressible as it swarmed around me. His mouth moved as a trembling and vicious flame over my own; his tongue swiping gently over mine as my skin quivered below his effect.

My head began to spin as he pulled away to kiss fervently across my neck to my collarbone. He found an area he deemed delicious, I suppose… for he sucked and bit at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I didn’t bother to bite back the moan that followed suit as it spilled from me in a breathless whimper. His hands brushed over hip and thigh as I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. I leaned into his kisses as the skin under his lips began to pulse with waves of sensitive pleasure.

I felt a kindling within my gut; an uncontrollable reaction that began at the sight of him. I felt as though I were sinking into the mattress and becoming jelly as he squeezed at my flesh and continued to leave open-mouthed kisses all along my heating skin.

“Oh… Sebastian.”

I whispered into the air with fluttering breath. Butterflies were beginning to gather in an enormous Kaleidoscope within my stomach and lungs, and I felt the heat within me grow into a monster.

“I want it.”

My voice was brash and breathy as it floated in the air between us.

“Bad.”

I felt his breath mingling across the expanse of my pale, white skin. I gripped harshly at his shoulders as his hips brushed teasingly against mine. Why he felt the need to tease me until I was a bubbling mess of arousal, want and need in his arms, I did not know. All I knew was that his touch was heated and soft and felt oh, so good.

I gasped when he suddenly squeezed my waist tightly; as if he were testing its resilience. His grip was incredible, and I felt all of his frustration towards being reigned in within that tremendously illicit grasp. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth; wondering whether or not such a compression would leave bruises. I knew that even if they did, I surely wouldn’t mind. Oh, how debouched this creature had made me.

“And so, you shall receive.”

He whispered huskily into the silkiness that was the skin near my ear. I sighed, feeling my eyes begin to lid as my muscles grew heavier and heavier under his relentless stroking and teasing.

His hands drew up the sides of my hips to mingle and soothe over every expanse of my stomach and chest, pushing my night shirt up to my neck as he did so. The way he moved was slow and passionate. It wasn’t at all how it had been the night before; when my breath came in uncontrolled gasps and my legs were far too weak to withstand my shaking body. Instead, he went slow and steady; flicking at the sensitivity of my right nipple. I sighed, arching upwards into that caress. My head fell back against the sanctuary of pillows behind me; taking refuge in what little muffling they could give to my flushed face and careless moans.

His kisses drew a path of heat down to my other, now equally erect, nipple. His tongue rolled around the perky bud, and I could feel those eyes watching my face. I knew I must’ve looked quite the mess; with my hair splayed around the linens and my eyes lidded in uncontrolled arousal. That gaze perforated the very core belief that I was unwanted in this world. In that moment, I felt that my existence mattered only if it was there to be stimulated by him. 

I realized that I had no need for a world without him in it.

And yet, I still could not quell this aching inside my brain that was telling me there was something more indispensable that was keeping me there. I knew it, and still… I wanted to think not of it. I wanted to allow myself to be lost within the ebb and flow that was the great shocks of pleasure he sent through the buds on my chest as he kissed and nipped and rubbed against them. It was as if I were becoming something boundless… something with an interminable spirit that would never quiet no matter how hard I tried to shush its cries. My soul was beginning to change, and I could feel it. I did not understand how the darkness of him could create such a light within me, but it did… he did. And he continued to do so as he lapped at my reactivity.

I felt my wanting grow into a need that I knew he felt responsible to relieve. The heat became unbearable and I knocked my hips against his again; desperate for friction and his pale, bare skin. I keened high in my throat as he began to push back against my naked and exposed arousal,

“Ahh-“

He cut me off with a dastardly kiss, sliding his hands down to the flesh of my thighs.

I wanted him so terribly that it was near painful. I craved his touch, his stare… his pitch hair falling from behind his ears to spill over the contrast of my belly. I craved his affections and his own hunger for me. All I wanted then was to be wanted in an equally passionate way. I felt a need to make myself as endearing as possible so that I could coax more touches from him. I wanted the whole of him as much as I was sure he needed the whole of me to taste my soul’s succulence. 

I arched my back sharply as I began to search for more of him to grasp. My hands finally found the yielding flesh of his arms and I clutched at them; breath heavy and skin shimmering in the candlelight. I whined when he pulled his lips away from mine, forever searching for more of him to drown in and to touch. But that thought was quickly forgotten as he pushed my hips down so firmly that they could not move an inch, and began to grind his clothed erection against mine in which was bare and sensitive.

The soft cotton texture was strange and invigorating, and I wanted more. I attempted to push back against that mound of warmth, but his hands held me fast and steady; permitting me no movement other than the writhing of my back and the fast pace in which I was taking in air. Though still, he knocked his hips into me… relishing, I’m sure, in the decadent whimpers that were making their way into the air from the breath that left my lips.

“Sebastian…”

I sighed his name in the most deplorable way; voice strung and laced from hunger as his eyes and hands swam with it. He kissed my neck gently as his thrusts became harder. I cried out, the sudden change in pace spurring me to reach for the clasp of his perfectly ironed slacks. I got it open somehow; all dexterity begotten from the eagerness in which my mind and hands were working.

His enraged cock was freed from its cloth confines, and I moaned at the sight of it. I imagined all the things Sebastian had done to me; how he could plow into me and melt my insides so skillfully and easily. I glanced at his lips and a mirage of images flashed before my eyes; silent kisses, rough pushes against walls… soft tender caresses that dizzied me and sent my head spinning. We had always been so natural and visceral. Pleasure had always come so easily to us. Tonight was no different as he reached for the vial of oil that was always kept near my bedside.

He poured the slick substance over his fingers before dragging them down to the crevice of my arse. They rolled over my already clenching entrance and I sighed, leaning back into soft white; a blank page ready to be ruined with many droplets of ink or blood. He teased my aching flesh with a wicked hand, rubbing over tight heat but never inside. I reached for him as his kisses became feverish. I longed to kiss him, too… to wallow in such enormity until there was nothing left but the gasps I gave for him. He finally took liberty in pushing one of those terrible fingers inside of me. It curled in gentle treachery; searching for the very spot in which would send me into oblivion. I could somehow feel Sebastian’s hunger… could somehow sense how badly he wanted me. And perhaps that was a projection of my own wishes and wants, but I could not help but to slander in the thought that he must love me. Somehow, he must be in love with me. He must.

It was wrong of me to think that someone could give a body so much pleasure… could service them so, and not feel even an inkling of longing for more than what was physical. Though I suppose Sebastian was a special case, wasn’t he? He was not a human, but a creature that wandered and willingly lost his way within the darkness; caring not if he would ever surface again. But I knew that he had been good, once. I knew that there was something hidden beneath those eyes that looked like galaxies swimming within an endless pool of conundrum. And I only wished to restore that part of him that remembered love… remembered kindness.

It was strange for me to think this way, for I had also become irreversibly swathed in darkness and loathing. I had long since abandoned the light for something far more intense and meaningful to me. I felt that I could never once give up hatred, for it was all I had left to hold on to. It was all that I had left to hold Sebastian to me.

“I-“

I wanted to hit something. I wanted to hit something until it felt as wretched as I did. Perhaps the candelabra which sat upon the bedside table would break into as many pieces as my heart and mind if I threw it against the wall, or maybe I could shatter the mirror that hung over dresser drawers… or my ring or my pride or Sebastian.

“I want-“

I felt the need to voice such turbulence within me. It had no logical reasoning, other than the fact that I felt too small to bear the weight of this crushing reality any longer. I had been far too young when the fire had started, and I had been far too young when it was snuffed out and rekindled within the depths of me. I knew that I was a walking contradiction… and I also knew that the contents of such facts were what drew this inexplicably beautiful creature to me in the first place. This was who I was, and I feared that it may never change. Though, perhaps I did not want it to change… for as long as I was kept at this wonderful dam’s edge, then perhaps he would never have to leave me. It was a thought that sounded insane to even my own consciousness, and I knew it would never be true… for I also knew that he would have much more than my body and mind by the time our game was over, and checkmate had been long since called.

I didn’t know what I wanted, except for him. I knew I wanted him, and I knew I was so angry and hurting inside that I needed more and more as the time passed by. I let out a shuddering breath; feathers dripping to the floor like the ends of a hurricane.

“I want you.”

I whispered into the heated air,

“I want you.”

I knew he wanted me, but not in the way in which I wanted him. I knew he loved me, but not in the way in which I loved him. It appeared the same, yet it was so different in context and mind that none of it mattered unless we would each voice every single thought that made its way through our heads.

I had told him once never to lie to me, though that did not ever mean that he had to tell me everything.

I trusted him with everything I had, as foolish as I knew that was.

He grabbed my aching cock with slick, oiled fingers as he began to pull my pleasure from me in time with the thrusting of his finger. Another digit was added, and he pushed them into me so slowly that I thought my chest might burst open and the whole of me would spill like the entrails of a gutted bird. His kisses were now being left upon the heaving of my belly as he ran teeth and tongue over soft, supple flesh. He felt so good. Everything felt so good that I almost forgot my pain entirely. His hand on my arousal twisted and rubbed over a leaking tip. His fingers buried themselves so deep in me that I thought surely I would be able to feel them for days after.

Suddenly, his fingers crooked in just the right way and I gripped tightly at his hair as my torso knocked into his awaiting mouth within the sharp arching of my back.

“Oooh… god, yes. Right there.”

I whined; a desperate breath upon his silky tide. He pushed into that spot again, and I couldn’t help but to allow my hands to fist themselves within his ebony locks. My entire body shook and buzzed with a deep, resounding reverence for him as I moaned wantonly; splayed on my back like a whore ready and willing to be taken. I was ready and willing to be taken, but I could not call myself a whore… no, not when this wonderful creature was the one making me act upon such pleasures. I couldn’t doubt myself when Sebastian always seemed to sure… so steady. I steadied myself by gripping his shoulders as he pulled himself away and grappled onto my hips.

He slicked his own length with the oil, spreading whatever was left across my own hardness. My breath was heavy and my tongue felt so dry as he began pumping himself over me. I’m sure my eyes were lidded and my mouth slack as he raised the other hand to grip at me. I couldn’t help but to thrust weak little undulations of my hips back into him. He was so skilled… to gentle. His touch felt so good, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted more. I needed more. I needed all of him. Shivers ran relentless up and down my spine as it arched of the bed and into that bastard’s wonderfully warm and tight clutch. I moaned low in my throat, eyelids dropping in bliss.

I felt a different kind of heat, suddenly. it was wet and think and so, so hard. I looked down to where his hand had been moments before, only to find his own arousal pushing against mine. I gasped at the touch, rolling my hips into him and electing a small growl in which I was sure only I could have heard. He brought his hand back to grip us both so tightly, and began to pull from base to tip in long, smooth strokes. I moaned again. My limbs felt like jelly and my mind felt like clouds. I didn’t know how or what to think anymore, for every bit of my mind was occupied with his eyes, his mouth, his skin, his touch… his hands that stroked us both as he circled his hips. It was almost too much, and I reached for the apples of his cheeks to pull him down and reign kisses upon every bit of flesh I could find. I licked at his jaw and pecked at his eyelids; tongue laving over his mouth before I pushed it past those lips and kissed him deeper than I felt I ever had before.

When I pulled away, I was sure I was flushed beyond belief under the tide of his thrusts and the pumps of his hand. I felt my release coming, and I did not want it to end just yet. For once, I wasn’t only searching for release, but instead the pleasure that came with sharing such intimacy with another person. I panted and writhed, still… unsure how to stop myself from coming before I was ready to. I cried out, fingernails scraping along the sides of his forearms.

“Stop, stop… Sebastian.”

I whimpered, legs wrapping around his waist tightly in warning.

He stopped immediately, a look of slight confusion flushing his face. I took a moment to catch my breath, and to let my oncoming orgasm seep back into my bones in the form of insatiable pleasure. I sighed, but it came out as a breathy moan; my voice filling the air with a tumultuous trembling. I placed my dainty palms unto his firm chest, pushing slightly at his skin. He moved away gently; enough for me to guide him to lay down upon the mattress where I was just a moment before. His expression changed to one of wonder as he watched me crawl up into his lap; my arms bracing themselves against a heavy chest.

I sat down upon his leaking arousal; the length of him sliding up between my supple cheeks as I ground down into his lap. I leaned down; back arched and ass raised so he could see the way it moved over him. I allowed no penetration; only that sweet, teasing pleasure that sent sparks up one’s spine and a tingling throughout one’s bones. I bit my lip, eyes fluttering closed as my now neglected cock rubbed over the muscled abdomen below me.

“Mmm…”

It was good… so good that I didn’t care much at all when he gripped violently at my waist and began pulsing me over him; rocking my hips harder… faster. My forearms rested upon an undulating torso as I was pushed over that unbearably hard cock. I let all control flow to him as I went slack under the relentless waves of pleasure he fed to me. My forehead dropped to a sweaty chest; lungs heaving and legs spreading as far as they could go. 

I began to grow desperate as I felt my orgasm approach once more. I whined and whimpered, barely able to move my own body. My breath was as heavy as a lioness in heat as it ghosted across Sebastian perfectly toned structure. I somehow managed to pick myself up; grabbing at his dick with the intent to push it inside of me. I wanted all of it, and I wanted it forthwith. I lifted myself on shaking legs, bracing myself against the storm in which was quickly approaching. It slid in with no refusal; easily and perfectly. I cried out in tandem, voice frothy and galvanizing.

Sebastian groaned ever so slightly, hands gripping tighter and hips shifting higher. All I could think was god, I never want this to end… not ever. And I didn’t. He felt so good, and my mind began to fog in overwhelm at the intensity of it all. I gave a few weak rolls of my hips, though I was far too tired and overcome to ride him the way I longed to. I desired to show him just how much I loved him… loved this. And though I hated my own pneuma for it, I was deeply submerged in this heat… in this forest of fine caresses and rough, messy kisses. I mewled when his hands slid up my torso; nails raking and gathering dead skin and sweat and whatever was left of me for him to take. I allowed such a fervid endeavor; reveled in it, even, as he leaned up to kiss over my mouth and tongue and ear. I could barely register the way in which he shifted us as he manipulated my body to his advantage. We ended with him kneeling, and I lay upon my back once more; sharp, pink scratches already beginning to form beneath my translucent skin. 

I shifted my hips, pleased at the angel in which he drove into my depths. He felt as a wildfire to me; a flock of birds… a hoard of bees across my naked skin. 

I cried out to him once more,

“Sebastian! Augh, god… yes!”

My head tossed back and forth against the foot of the bed as he began a ruthless pace. I could feel every vein, every ridge of him as he drove deep and hard into my wanting body. I gripped at the sheets so tightly I feared them ripping; body convulsing and back arching as my eyes could no longer see anything but his.

They stuck to me, glued into place by such intimacy and passion. It made every move of his all the more prominent, for I knew he could see and feel each and every detail of my core’s reactions to his movements. He was a supernatural being, one that was made to ruin and to bring unbearable lust upon the innocent. He was made for this purpose. He was made for me. And god… I knew to the very core of my being that I was most undoubtedly made for him. I had never felt such a need… such a passion before. And each time he took me it was rekindled like a precious flame that he could not allow to go out. And I gratefully let him singe me each time, for it made me feel alive… made me feel worthwhile. We were worth each other, and this was no ordinary contract… even I could tell that much. We were each so infatuated with the other that it mattered not what our intentions were in that moment. I only wanted to feel him, and that was enough for me.

And I knew then, that this was love.

It was a bitter taste upon my tongue… a crushing heat within my gut. The pleasure in my body grew and grew as my mind spun and whirred as if I were going to burst. Every ounce of fear left me as I readied myself for the release that he would give me. I waited for him to gift me that last push to send me over the edge so that I would be forever damned and caught in his embraces. I could feel the change in him, and I did not have the time to think of what it was before he was grinding into me so heavily… so hotly that I lost all thought and started to come hard.

The heat exploded from my core with spasms and rivulets of hot, dripping seed. My vision streaked with stars and with white and I had to fight to keep my eyes on him… to retain that gaze through my shuddering and gasping. I tried to bite my lip… tried to keep from screaming, but I couldn’t. I felt as though my body was completely in his control as it rested within his own two hands, and I could not stop the sounds from coming. My orgasm was somehow cerebral and cognitive. My thoughts were exploding as much as my body was, and I knew that it had never felt this insanely good before. 

Little, glittering tears streaked my rosy cheeks as my back began to straighten, and my voice started to listen to the acute awareness that the other servants were still in the manor. I gasped and panted still as I continued to come dry, unable to stop staring intently at his eyes as his thrusts began to grow wilder and his skin grew slicker against mine. He held my thighs over his waist as they shook and twitched… watching me still as my knuckles stayed white and my back arched again. I continued to meet his thrusts eagerly even when my cock grew slack and the sheets were not clenched, but only crumpled underneath numb hands. Every part of me felt so relaxed and numb except for where we were still joined and moving. I let out another moan as my overstimulated body continued to be toyed with.

He held my gaze even when I felt him come inside me with a particularly hard and deep thrust. he filled me with warm, sticky fluid, and I could see within that gaze that he knew. He knew I was a damned fool and a sentimental dunce; with my hair a mess and my pride and objective taken away, if only for a moment. He knew that I was still, and would forever be utterly lost within the helpless callings from my heart, and he knew that I didn’t only come from bodily pleasure.

I came because it was him.

I could tell that my brows were furrowed and arched; upon my face in an expression of agony, disbelief and bliss.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. Every particle of my being felt so good and so odious that I could not bare to feel myself any longer. I reached out to him, desperate for an anchor to tie me back under the waves so that I would not have to rock against them so nauseatingly.

He pulled himself from me, gathering my jellied figure into his arms. I had not the energy to reverent in my own despair; only enough to touch him… to feel him. I rested my forehead against his shoulder tenderly, and I knew that I must not let these feelings hinder me. But I was plagued with the horrible feeling called regret… and I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake in allowing myself such leisure. Nevertheless, I sighed into his skin… too worn to cry tears of anything but intense pleasure. 

Then, he whispered in a rasp, so quiet that I was barely able to hear,

“Mine.”

And so I replied surely, into the shell of his ear so that I was sure it was audible to him,

“Yours.”

And I had only one thought with an insistent mind. 

It hadn’t before, but now it hurt.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'He spoke, then; a rasp that transcended into rivulets of dew upon the lobe of my ear,
> 
> “Don’t you know, little one?  When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss is also permitted to gaze right back into you.”
> 
> I wondered what was so permutable about that. I did not need to be patronized… I was well aware of how nature wove its gruesome tale, and I was not afraid. I never had been.
> 
> “You are full of hell, Sebastian.”
> 
> I knew exactly what he was… I had never ventured to repudiate that. But the way he made me feel was nothing short of a purgatory meant for those who could not fit anywhere but between the thinnest of lines.
> 
> “But you are also full of heaven.”'

This had been different. He had spoken no words with his mouth… no slick tongue, no writing me into pages without end so that he may call me what I am surely not. His kisses had been so soft and so supple… so loving and tender that I almost wished he had bit at me instead. He had been different this time. I had been different. My mind had been so clear. I had held his gaze with much more than just courage or spite alone, because I had wanted to see his face when he came. I had wanted him to see mine. And though I did not know it yet, this would bring about a change which was so slow and so slight that I did not notice it for nearly a year.

He had slept beside me that night; his arms wrapped around me in ways they never had been before, and I was terrified. I did not want this thing to change. I did not begot into this contract with the intent to lose what I had been so furious for. Of course, I was still utterly broken from the inside out… and I was sure that nothing would ever change that. I was hurt and I was angry. But it seemed to me that I was beginning to pour such an intense passion into my butler, of all things, instead. Such hatred was beginning to twist into an affection that I hadn’t been readied for. The intent to kill was slowly being replaced with the intent to kiss, and I was catching myself wondering what would happen if I did not wish this contract to end.

I was beginning to realize how truly foolish I had been.

And I was growing up.

I was born to live like a shooting star; to live brightly and with the intent to move forward until I burned out in the wake of my legacy. What was a legacy? It was planting seeds within a garden I would never get to see… and it pained me to know that I was becoming accustomed to such a thought. Perhaps I was becoming more of a star, now. But I felt like my lungs are closing in, and starts still need oxygen to stay alight. I felt as though Sebastian was my only source of breath anymore… my only hope for light. I suppose that it had always been that way. But stars also needed darkness to be seen, and he was certainly full of enough of that, too.

Sebastian wanted me. He wanted and wanted until I felt there was nothing left of either of us, because without this hatred boiling up inside of me what was I? Afraid, small… lonely? Perhaps I was all of those things. And perhaps I was none of them. But every time those whisper soft lips curved into an unreadable smile I wondered how it would feel if the world’s righteous laws didn’t exist. How would it feel to burn out? I wondered, because I would, eventually. I would burn out… I knew it.

Halloween passed with no trick nor treat to accompany it, and the chill of winter ended its fluctuations and became obsolete. I had begun the preparations to bring new holiday items to our shelves and please the children. Appropriate confectionaries and toys were being manufactured overseas in America, and contracts were being renewed in the national stores here in Europe. Christmas was coming, and after that it would be a new year; a good one for Funtom, according to the predictions Sebastian had equated for.

The rain outside had quickly turned to snow, and I was rightfully quick to assume that it would stay in those close-knot bundles of frozen white flakes. They stuck to the window like little fluttering sprites in the wind and melted down, and down again until they disintegrated and were no more. A gentle quiet enveloped the manor; muffling sounds with its occasionally chaotic white. I needed not to ponder such things, though, as England had always proven to be such a cold, and ruthless place. It embodied winter… owned it, even. I suppose that it had chosen the right Earl to inhabit it, for I was a perfect mirror in my own mannerisms; an imperial echo of something begotten from pride and tradition… though meaningless as that all proved to be. I was only full of the wrongs others had done to me; yet another predecessor doomed to be swathed in darkness. The only thing to separate me was that my darkness had glowing red eyes and a soft, thudding heartbeat… and oh, how those eyes did pierce and shine and whisper.

And how that heartbeat sounded so much like a requiem.

Every moment that was not enveloped in distractions and business where occupied by my raging contradiction. I breathed such a thing; lived in and for it. I had never felt to alive, and I had never felt so close to death. But I suppose that is to say how it feels to love… how it feels to break. And as much as I knew that demon with those restless eyes hungered for something I could not seem to fathom, I was also consumed with such a thing that I could not put a name to. The seconds were as a ticking clock; each moment obliterated by history leading closer and closer to the mystery that would be my fate. But I was so much stronger than that. 

I was so much weaker.

I continued to accost and to be petulant; as I always did where image was concerned. I never let anyone but Sebastian see the side of me that I so loathed in my confusion over. To the public, I was perfect; such a figure transcended early into the affairs of business and academics. Only Sebastian himself knew what a mirage it was. I saw it in the fleeting glances he stole from me; in the way his eyes gleamed just so. Perhaps a flicker of the candlelight?

It was the night after the first ball of the season. I was tired and stretched so thin that I wondered if the tiredness beneath my eyes were visible. I knew Sebastian noticed, for he had been so kind in his touches while getting me ready. The dancing had left me worse off than before, and as soon as the last guest was ushered out of those great, oak doors, my body seemed to collapse into its self. I released my posture into a slouch of sorts, loosening my tie until it hung as a dead goose around my neck.

Sebastian turned to me, and his eyes were flaming. I knew he didn’t care much for balls and parties… he wanted to be able to speak freely; to touch me. He hated it when I danced with others, despite how utterly sorry my dexterity was when it came to gracefulness. He spoke no words to me as he approached me fiercely, gaze locking into every bit of my consciousness. He looked so far from human in that moment, I was almost afraid. But I held my place in front of the stairwell; arms crossed and scrutiny as steady as I could manage.

I felt as though I should say something as the distance between us dwindled further into nothingness… but my tongue was held in an iron grip, and I was far from speech. His warmth drew near until he pressed himself against me, pushing and pushing until I tripped over the first step and fell. The harsh edge of marble cut into the the small of my back as he towered over me. Never before had I seen such possessiveness from him, and I couldn’t help but wonder what spurred this desire to permeate his starvation through me.

He pressed a knee between my thighs, and his hands gripped whatever purchase of flesh he could find; a sinister tasting of my soul that lied beneath creamy white and crimson blood. I gasped out a breath when his mouth descended upon my own and suckled softly at my lip. I didn’t know where to put my hands or whether or not I should close my eyes. I felt attacked by his enormous intensity and I panted, desperate for breath when he finally released my mouth to bite red crescents down my neck and shoulder.

I pulled at his hair, hissing in pain as I felt him draw blood. He sucked at the wound greedily as his hands roamed across the satin fabric of my waistcoat. I felt my head grow light, and my hands drew down to his shoulders and I pushed at him. I did not understand his intentions nor this strange and alarming change of character from him. I did know, however, that he was a demon… and demons are inconsistent and strange creatures. These thoughts ran rampant as I continued to attempt to work him off me.

But, somehow, that gentleness from before had still been ever-present.

And it was the first time that I remember having ever been afraid of him.

I was both helpless and frustrated; for a moment wondering if he would stop even if I ordered him to. I did not have the capacity to comprehend that he had sent such a wave of trepidation throughout me. It wasn’t what he was doing that bothered me… it was the way the aggressive edge of the steps below pressed into my back with the force of his weight. It was his panting breath and his wicked, clawed hands; as if he were desperately grasping at whatever demonhood he could handle. I felt a confusing kind of arousal kindle within me, and I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Stop!”

Shaken, I gasped into the frigid yet boiling air around us,

“Stop, stop… stop.”

His hands stilled, clinging to my hips in a vice as he tauntingly pulled his lips away from me.

I breathed for awhile, until each inhalation was no longer a rugged search for air. I felt his desires through the thick, heavy air around us. I knew that he must’ve been frustrated beyond belief, even as I could feel the clarity returning to him. I had never seen him lose control like that; eyes glowing, mouth as dominating as it could be. I wondered if he had drawn inspiration from the way winter wrapped its chilly fingers around everything it possibly could… sliding and purring over branches as his fingernails did my limbs. I could tell something inside of him was wavering and moaning like a boat cast out onto unsure waters; a place he had never been before. I wondered gracelessly, again, if I had been the cause of this confusion.

I began to feel everything, yet nothing at all.

“It isn’t fair.”

My voice was the moonlight dancing on those waves hewn from starlight and Sebastian’s thoughts themselves,

“This isn’t fair.”

I knew this to be true as much as I knew that we both were suffering. It was unfair to him as much as it was to me. I felt him bow his head; hands beginning to shake. My hands summoned up to his hairline, and I carded pale, slender fingers through his silky hair. If a demon could truly sigh, I swear that demon had in that moment. I felt his breath touch my neck as my covered eye pulsed and raced with something I could not fathom just yet. I couldn’t help arching into him… it was as if his very thoughts dictated who I was. I whimpered into the strands of sable that fell onto my lips and eyelashes.

He spoke, then; a rasp that transcended into rivulets of dew upon the lobe of my ear,

“Don’t you know, little one?  When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss is also permitted to gaze right back into you.”

I wondered what was so permutable about that. I did not need to be patronized… I was well aware of how nature wove its gruesome tale, and I was not afraid. I never had been.

“You are full of hell, Sebastian.”

I knew exactly what he was… I had never ventured to repudiate that. But the way he made me feel was nothing short of a purgatory meant for those who could not fit anywhere but between the thinnest of lines.

“But you are also full of heaven.”

I could not surmise anything but darkness from him… especially when he bit into my heart with silver bullets made of words and sounds and a space as big as the moon,

“You abandoned heaven when you called for me.”

But I didn’t think I had. I think I had only lost who I was, and who I was meant to be.

“Perhaps that luxury is a lie, then.”

He pulled me up to push me against the banister, and his tone returned to the one I knew as it taunted and teased wickedly,

“I am horrid.”

“That you are.”

“I am darkness.”

“You are right.”

“How could you love me?”

Our voices were hushed and heated and pressed into skin neither one of us could deny,

“I never said I did.”

“You never said you did not, either.”

His tongue was biting as he kissed me.

I was right, I had never said I loved him. But he was right, as well… and I had never said I didn’t. And I had avoided giving him an answer because I wasn’t sure I could. He spoke only truths, and he had never told a lie. Why was I so enthralled? Why had I let myself become something I swore I never would? 

I did not want it to end. 

I did not want it to continue. 

I was lost, and so, so alone… even though I knew I had absolutely everything. I felt something nameless boil up inside my gut until I feared it was something tangible that would spill from my throat in a mess of champagne and gurgling voices. His hands roamed freely now across my skin, and I could not tell if his touches were scathing from passion or from hellfire.

I didn't process what I had said until the words spilled mindlessly from my slick, bruised lips,

“I hate you.”

It wasn’t true… and neither was the reply he whispered just before he kissed me again; a welcome threat this time around,

“I know.”

I continued to feel the tectonics of everything shift into a quake that was less physically damaging than it was cognitive and tempestuous. He pressed into me until I could not breathe nor think nor worry what anything was. I knew that nothing this toxic and tumultuous would last forever, nor end well. Everything that would come of it was bound to be furious and full of penance… no matter if it was cloaked in pleasure nor harmlessness nor love. And I wasn’t sure I knew what love meant, anymore. All I knew was that I felt it for him, and it was endless… horribly, beautifully endless.

I felt him tug my shirt from my trousers.

And those eyes, those eyes… god, those eyes would not leave me.

Be careful. I thought, you’ll spoil your supper.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'He turned back around to face me, and it was as if he had let some invisible wall crumble there between us... and his eyes looked as they had some nights ago, when I was attached to him in body and mind and so much more that I could not name. 
> 
> I lost my breath, if only for a moment.
> 
> ...
> 
> Oh, how does a demon love?'

I had realized, in a moment that I did not seem to remember, that I was afraid. I was afraid of losing what I had worked so hard to gain, and I was afraid that in working so hard I had gained much more than what I had bargained for. What was this thing that was growing all around me? And why must it suddenly be begotten within my own flesh and bones the very same way that such ease used to please me? The infinity of such a conscience was growing unto the depths of such a striking and rare soul (as Sebastian had once spoke of it), that I feared it would crumble until I reimagined what my purpose would be.

I was not naive enough to believe in such a thing as god, nor love, nor steady human compassion. I was well aware of the pure insolence that was humanity, and I had never once tried to hide from my own pitiful emotions. If our own existence was as futile as it seemed, and if nothing truly mattered, then why should I spend such a meaningless existence reveling in what those before me had laid? I would not… I refused to accept anything that did not fuel me… and the things that fueled me tended to be raw and wild.

I suppose Sebastian was right whenever he spoke of my soul.

“You are unlike any being I have ever sought to imagine.”

I scoffed at the remark, gaze hovering over the perfectly handsome features of his face; hoping to grasp at something more than just that unscrupulous gaze as he sat in the parlor across from me.

I knew that such a social setting would be seen as improper to the eyes of anyone who turned a cheek to the underworld… to anyone who didn't see us for what we truly were.

“How is that, then? Am I only to be something you admire, and never something that you would long to touch or to devour?”

“No, sir… you patronize me.”

“Do I, now? Then how is it that you allow yourself to crave my spirit? How is it that you do not seem to understand that there is a conscience hiding beneath such… divinity, as you call it?”

His eyes seemed to flare with that certain kind of aggression that only came with his bouts of demonic presence. They always reminded me of what I had, and what I had not.

“Why must you believe that you and your soul are different things?”

A cloud encased the glow of the moon, then; swathing his face in a darkness that I was sure reflected his own soul and conscious, if he had them.

I thought on what he said for a moment, realizing that he was right. I would eventually have to realize that this body in which my essence dwelled was nothing but a vessel in which to translate my imprint unto whatever I encountered. I glanced away if only for a moment; a display of submission I had hoped he had not caught. 

I knew that he did.

“I do not know.”

I muttered; far more breathlessly than I had hoped.

“What do you know of it, then… young lord? What do you know of your soul?”

His tone seemed to penetrate whatever whits I had left about me, and I was near forced to look away from the intensity of that wandering gaze.

“I do not.”

“You do not know of it? Haven’t I taught you better than that?”

He had taught me so much of myself that I feared he knew more of it than I did.

“You know more of it than I ever have… of that I am certain.”

“Perhaps I only perceive through the right lens as to see it fully.”

I stood suddenly. I did not know what force compelled me to do so, but I was sure that some part of me was angry for not knowing… for never searching far enough into the depths of me to see what made me tick.

I needed but an ounce of control to trickle back to me.

“Tell me, master… what do you know of it?”

I felt my breath speed up in a way that compelled my hands to fist beside me as an anchor.

I stepped but a hairs width closer.

“I-“

He stood then; a piercing glare embedded deep within his eyes that I knew had been born from his years of knowing me.

“I know that it aches for you in way that is incomprehensible to me.”

My voice was a whisper; the whine of a violin that was being played but for the pleasure of the musician only.

He was so close to me that I could feel his breath upon my face… could feel his urge to reach out to me and pull me to him. He had naught to say, only to search my eyes for something that could impede human speech. I suppose that such a weak form of communication was not perfervid enough for him, for he knew of realms that I could not even begin to understand nor conjure to mind.

He fascinated me, and I did not bother to hide curiosity… for it was one of the only humane traits I knew of that did not sends waves of disgust through me.

“What are you?”

I asked within a whisper.

“You know exactly what I am boy, do not try to implore that you do not.”

I shook my head, knowing of how many truths he spoke, and questions he answered within that phrase.

I asked again, but with the pure intentions of a creature simply wanting to know about another,

“What were you?”

His eyes flared again, for a moment, and his mouth tugged up at one side to paint the perfect smirk across his face.

“Now, that… that is quite the question.”

He moved away for a moment to straighten a stack of books that had somehow gone askew; back turned to me in the thickening air.

"I knew it was but a matter of time before you asked me."

He continued to speak in that velvety voice,

"And so, I shall tell you."

He turned back around to face me, and it was as if he had let some invisible wall crumble there between us... and his eyes looked as they had some nights ago, when I was attached to him in body and mind and so much more that I could not name. 

I lost my breath, if only for a moment.

"I was once as human as you are now.”

He took no caution, no build up in telling me. I didn't know why he would have... there was no reason to get mired into his answer.

"It was so long ago, and my spirit had been in such a contrasting state, that I do not remember even what my name was."

He stepped closer, and I felt the need to speak,

"What do you remember?"

"Death."

He replied,

"I remember my death." 

I saw that something blazing in his eyes again, and as before, I could not put a finger on what it was. 

“I remember it so clearly, that if you were to tell me that it happened yesterday I may simply have to believe you. I suppose this is because that certain event is what lead me into becoming what I am now… what I will always be.”

His words puzzled me, and I had none to reply with.

"H-how... what do you mean, Sebastian? Why must you be so cryptic with your words?"

I wanted to touch him, suddenly.

He shook his head before turning to sit back against the chair he occupied minutes beforehand. I waited, expecting him to continue. He did not.

"What... so that's it, then? You're not going to tell me how?"

"My lord, I am not so sure that such ears as yours would wish to hear those words."

“I am not a chi-"

"But aren't you?"

This disturbed me in a way I had not thought on before. If he believed me to be a child, then how could he have brought upon me what even fully grown man would cringe at the thought of? How could he touch me the way he did… or allow me to wield a gun? I did not believe myself to be a child… and I was sure that he must not have, either.

"No."

He smirked.

"Very well."

I took a seat next to him in the plush chair beside his.

"I took a blade... sharpened it and polished it until it shone as a sparkling jewel.”

I thought, had he been as murderous in that life as he always had been here?

"I then locked myself in a room. I do not remember what it looked like, only the fact that it was dark."

His eyes seemed to focus upon a spot over the rug that fascinated him entirely.

"I sat in a corner, well concealed and hidden.”

His eyes flickered back to me.

I was beginning to understand.

"There was a window behind me, and the blade caught the light just so that I thought, just for a moment, of how little I was going to miss the moonlight. I did not care any longer. I only wanted out... and I was angry."

Those irises of his began to glow again, and the moonlight he spoke of returned and cast such a beautiful light across his features. It was strange to think that the same moon that he had looked upon then, was looking back upon him now.

"I was angry."

An emotion I had never seen from him burst forth in a nanosecond. It was so fleeting and so strange, that I wondered if I had imagined it. 

The darkness of night tended to do that to one’s mind.

"And so I raised the blade to rest against the flesh of my wrist; a slice straight down across a blue vein..."

He paused, expression concealing.

My fingers wound themselves into fists, again.

"and that was it. My heartbeat stopped and there was only darkness."

"Sebastian-"

"Please, master... no need to wallow in such things."

He gave me one of his smiles.

"Why?"

I whispered, legs propelling me forward off the chair and into his lap,

"Why?"

"I think that there had been someone I loved, whom passed... or whom did not love me any longer, or not at all."

I rested my head to his chest, listening for that comforting drumbeat of whatever kind of heart he had now. I felt its steady rhythm, and closed my eyes gently. His arms came around to hold me to him.

So he had known love. At some point in his existence he had been able to immerse himself into this great tidal wave of implacable diamonds that was the feeling I could never seem to shake around him. But because of it, he was cast away from heaven and all of its crystal-clear springs that trickled down as emotion into the human heart. He was cast away from those damned and those blessed lifelines and tunnels that ran from heaven to hell through the horrible thing called our sentiments. He had forgotten what it meant, and now… now he was being forced to experience what I was sure was the closest thing. He was made to crave what he had found to be the perfect example of what he had lost… the perfect example of this debouched grandeur.

Perhaps in telling me this he had broken down the last bit of separation between whatever kind of souls our bodies were chained to.

"And yet your heartbeat remains certain, still."

"I would hardly call that a heartbeat, my lord."

"No, no... no."

Hands fisted in his hair as dead tree branches would tattered curtains.

"It's been a long time since I became what I am... and I would be lying to you if I told you I remembered how a true heartbeat felt."

"Sebastian, you do not need a heartbeat."

"But don't I? Don't I need to be kept alive?"

"I hardly think that it is what fuels you."

I caught myself before I called him a demon, again. Something about that name seemed so wrong to use now... seemed so mocking and evil that even I didn't dare to use it again.

There was a long stretch of silence wherein he simply held me to him, as I caressed the onyx of his hair... breathing into his neck and shoulder as chests rose and fell, and heartbeats drummed steady in ribcages. Something about what he had said told me that I was of extreme importance... that somehow, meeting me had reminded him of something he had forgotten long ago. It was a strange thought. But it was something in his voice... something in his eyes that spoke of such things... of such comfort. Something about the way he breathed over my neck felt so very alive. His hands seemed to be awake in a manor I hadn’t quite felt from him before. He was so warm. So cold. 

I caressed his cheek and neck endlessly as waves would a beach in winter; icy as my eyes and words often were… yet burning like rum on a fire. I remembered the words we had spoken whilst embraced in each other arms that night. I remembered how truly right it had felt to finally admit to such a condemnation. I was his as much as he was very well mine. And I did not know if I would be able to bear it when my paramount was finally achieved… because I was afraid that I would feel nothing but utter despair for what I had lost atop my great pile of bones. Because he was still a demon, and I had still promised him my soul. And I knew that he would take it.

Oh, how does a demon love?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Your nightmare was about me.”
> 
> His voice was resolute, and he had not asked. He had stated this with an assuredness I could only dream to have, and I found myself wondering how he never seemed to ask questions genuinely. It was as if he knew all… yet he wanted to tease me into a submission of my own thoughts.
> 
> “Yes,”
> 
> My voice was shaky and thick with the trails of my tears.'
> 
> “it was.”
> 
> “How did I come to you, child?”
> 
> He was low and dark as he pulled me to him by waist and hip. His breath spoke into mine; lips hovering above lips, and I spoke,
> 
> “Smoke. You came as a black smoke or fog… and it invaded my being until all I could feel was you.”

Our silent interactions were becoming less of a conundrum and more of a comfort. It was odd… whenever I thought too much on us I realized that there was two different laws appeasing us: one of master and servant, and one of demon and prey. Just as I was set to own him until he took my soul, he was also set to hunt for me until I became his prey. It was an unwavering war of dominance, and I was afraid that I was playing the role of the rabbit far too well. I did not know why I was so afraid of losing whatever power he let me have (for he did, indeed let me have it), especially when it felt so overwhelmingly good.

I was watching him tend to the roses.

Through the window, I could see him trimming the leaves and branches of the bushes he had seemed to grow overnight. The tails of his coat fluttered through the chilly winter air; the sky clouded with grey and white. It looked as if it would snow, yet he wore no protection from the cold. It was the little things like this in which reminded me that he was a being begot from something otherworldly and profound. He summoned forth a bucket of water, and began to bathe their petals with frost. I watched them as they turned from the bloodiest red to the faintest, purest white. I gasped, placing a palm across the window pane. An outline of fog came as a halo around my fingers, and spread across the clean glass; the skin of my hand warming the surface as it met with it.

He turned towards me, and bowed; eyes flashing faintly in the dim air. I nodded, hiding the smile that threatened to pour from my lips, for he was the one to flash his own smirk. Our eyes locked, and he plucked a rose as delicate as ash and hewn from mist. Holding it out to me, he beckoned me softly with a graceful stroke of a white gloved finger. I turned from him to glance behind, only to be sure that the servants were out of sight and mind. No one could know of the relationship blossoming between us… for if anyone were to discover it, I would surely be pushed beyond the ledge of reason. My pride would shatter along with anything else I possessed that was frangible.

I swiftly crossed to the door; feet scampering as a mouse beneath roofs and behind walls. It creaked slightly on its hinges, and I was met with a burst of fresh, cold air. I did not bother to return to the sanctuary of the mansion to retrieve my coat. I did not wish to be bothered by the impatience I was sure to feel, and so I braved the chill and stepped outside. The heels of my boots crunched on the thick gravel underfoot as I made my way to the garden where he was still standing… grasping the flower with such richness that I could almost feel his hand upon my skin. He stepped towards me, his hand reaching for mine the way the tide reaches for the moon each night. He spun me on my toes, and I fell into him begot from my utter imbalance and lack of skills. 

My nose and forehead hit his chest as he pulled me into his warmth. He smelled so strongly of cinnamon and clove, and I pushed myself into his coat to feel more of him around me. I stumbled further into him, and he held me fast by my waist. Diluted sunlight danced across the chilled air and over our skin; slightly ruffling my hair with its breezes. I looked up to him… at his handsome jaw and piercing eyes that glared and prodded and were so, so soft when they looked at me. Without breaking whatever trance he had set me in, he placed the thornless rose into the palm of my hand, which was pale with cold and with stagnation. I clenched it within my fingers and against his chest, holding his lapel with the other. An arm snaked around my trembling waist, and the other was summoned over the chilled flesh of my cheek; which instantly warmed under his gaze that still would not leave me.

He leaned down until his mouth hovered over mine, and our breath mingled as a tangible vapor between us.

“You must be cold, young master.”

“I am not.”

I whispered as soft as the petals of the rose I held over his lips.

“Your hands are like ice.”

“Much like the rest of me.”

“No.”

He stated,

“Not like the rest of you.”

His eyes burned as hot as scalding embers into the ocean of my own… and as fire and sea his gaze nearly caused sparks and smoke in the air between us.

He continued,

“The rest of you burns so hot and so rampant… you are like an intangible flame which alights all you gaze upon.”

His hand carded through my hair, and I was quick to light the flame of speech its self in return,

“Do I alight you, Sebastian?”

He tugged hard on my hair, suddenly; hand fisting in it as if it was the very last lifeboat leaving a sinking ship. I gasped as the length of my slate locks were pulled; clutching the rose so tightly I nearly crushed it and snapped the stem just as he always managed to snap my heart and soul. He tormented me so with the way he leaned so close to my ear, that I became faint and was afraid that I would not be able to stay afoot without him holding me up. My eyes closed as I felt the soft caress of his breath against my sensitive neck and ear; grappling onto his coat with white knuckles and trembling hands.

He replied,

“I burn with an ignition that turns the feathers of my wings blacker than the darkest ebony.”

My pants were coming in short gasps as he pulled me so close to him that I feared I would not be able to draw breath at all. But I did. And he sent an entire array of shivers and tremors through me that I was glad his arms were so fast and so strong.

“You scald me until I am as charred as night and as hot as day. The flames in which you have summoned me from compare not to your passion, little one.”

He continued as he deeply inhaled my scent, running his nose along my pale neck and temple. His breath ruffled the bits of my hair that were astray and I shuddered; unable to help the way my knees nearly buckled as if his words were a whip… for they made mine look as a near pinch in comparison. I was reminded then that his soul, mind and body he would always be superior and destructive.

His voice took on another tone in which was low, and oh, so sweet,

“I can feel every little impulse… every single thought and emotion that runs through you, Ciel. I feel myself throb with that beautiful lavender light.”

I had forgotten the cold as his voice, breath and words felt so blistering, and I feared I would perspire despite the snow that began to fall around us in rivulets of winter. The sting in my scalp would never compare to what he alone, as a being, did to me.

He withdrew from my skin and released his hold on my hair to pull on the eyepatch I wore, instead. I blinked as my eye was exposed to the harsh, white scenery around us. My breath began to slow as my vision cleared and he touched me. His fingertips ran soft over my eyelashes, and pressed gently under my eye to feel just how soft and supple the skin was. He pulled away, if only for a moment, to remove his glove with teeth that were now pointed canines amongst a sea of red and white.

He lay his hand across my hairline where it met the tender skin around my eye. His fingers caressed my temple, and I felt the sting of his brand so close to mine. That lavender light began to grow until it shone even upon the apples of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. It stung in the most pleasurable way, and I whined at he pressed his hand further against me.

“It feels like this.”

He spoke lowly, eyes again locked tight into mine as he held me nearly upright, and I slumped into him.

“It feels just like this.”

It was much later when I decided to finally rest. The snow had quickly become a blizzard that swept through everything and froze the grounds as if time its self had stopped ticking. Time was an illusion after all… though it certainly could feel so, agonizingly slow at times. Like a broadening skyline in the wake of morning’s fog, it had finally become clear to me that I was not the only one in conundrum. Sebastian’s own experience always seemed to fleeting; for he had lived a thousand years for a thousand lives, and not once had he ever been in love. He did not seem deplorable to me, for he had not a human heart to break nor to swell. He only had his hunger; his insatiable, burning hunger in which he felt for me. I suppose I had been mistaken. Perhaps for once, in whatever kind of life he lived, he finally felt something as wicked as he was. 

Perhaps he finally could feel what it meant to be human again.

This is not to say that his core… his being… could ever be anything different than evil. For he was never tired enough. And just as he turned those roses hewn from blood to those hewn from moonlight and ice, and the color of my skin and bones, he was turning something intangible. He spun it so smoothly and so thin that it seemed a mere spider’s thread amongst a forest of green. And though it alone could not withstand a storm, he was quickly building a web in which I was becoming entangled in. 

I think he had been snared unto his own enigma.

I had a nightmare upon that night.

I hadn’t had one in months, it seemed… but my mind had never once been a hospitable pace. As soon as I closed my eyes, I was greeted with such grievous and horrifying images that I had to sit up in my bed more than once to clear them. When I finally managed to sleep, all I saw was fire and ash. I could almost feel the scent of burning skin all around me, and then I saw blood. So much blood that it filled my mouth and I could not scream out to anyone. I could not sense Sebastian, and I could not sense myself. All I knew was pain, and the laughs of the villains whom had inundated my head for nearly seven years of my life.

I could feel their hands all around me; gripping and pushing and mauling at my flesh until it bled. I could hear them speak, yet I did not understand their words. They sounded like such animals that I often would wonder if they were human at all as they pummeled me into an endless, abysmal night.

I was suddenly summoned to a large brick of stone.

Everything was warped black and blue as they trussed the rope to my ankles and to my wrists. I tried to cry out yet again, yet there was a gag holding onto each breath.. each sound. I realized I hadn’t remembered how it got there. I realized I doubtlessly did not wish to know.

And yet, suddenly… there was a great wave of shadow which came to block my view. It felt ominous and mountainous as it seemed to invade and choke at my lungs with an iron grip. I felt sweat begin to bead upon the temples of my head, despite the chill that came to the air. Suddenly, my vision was swathed with a darkness which permitted no light to enter them. The gag was pulled roughly from between my teeth, and I gasped, only to feel the strange fog thicken and wrap its self over my tongue and teeth… down my throat and into my lungs. I gasped and coughed until there was no more breathe to be taken in, and I felt a familiar heat come to slaver me. 

In my trance, I could not place the feeling tugging relentlessly at my gut. I only knew that I seemed to have felt it before. All I could sense was the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and clove… cedar wood and ash; all bundled together to transcend into a brew of chills and goosebumps upon my skin. It was nearly as if hands were tracing each hip… each bone and muscle and sinew being caressed by the gentlest of touches. Soothing me, it bled over each inch of skin… each crevice until I was calling out for a name I hadn’t recalled remembering.

It sounded muddy and raw as I pulled against the rope which bound me. I felt them give into rivulets of blood and sweat as it pooled around my fingers and toes; dripping onto the great stone beneath my bruised and battered back. I could not bare to see the wounds that riddled me as they continued to form upon my pale flesh. I kept pulling… kept pulling until I couldn’t even feel how raw and torn the skin was.

And suddenly, I was giving orders. I was telling the unseen beast to kill… to ravage every body until they were lifeless in a heap of useless souls and helpless faces. My throat was raw by the time I finished screaming; any cries escaping only as hoarse, rough breaths and pants. My head slumped back against the rough marble, only for my hair to be suddenly pulled away. I looked down to realize that the stone had turned into a mass of wriggling, writhing snakes. The rope which bound me moments ago now sported jaws of enormity; with fangs lining their blackened mouths which dripped with venom.

As hard as I tried, I could not scream.

I struggled harder against them, yet they only licked at the blood oozing from me. I began to hyperventilate, asthma flaring and causing every inch of lung to constrict. Yet the urge to escape grew stronger still as I heard the sounds of murder all around me. The air began to grow strongly of sulfur, and I choked again as the serpents found their way around my throat and waist and began to squeeze. 

My vision was streaked with red and black, and all I knew was that I wanted to be closer to that strange fog… to be enveloped. For even though it was surely and evil thing, it was surely less monstrous than what was being slaughtered by it. It felt safe… and warm. I found myself reaching out to it endlessly. I could not tell where it ended, and I began… all I knew was that it seemed to be becoming a part of me. Pulsing, pushing… tearing. It floated over and blanketed everything in sight. 

Suddenly, the screams around me had stopped.

I knew, then, the name for this prodigious, tumultuous creature.

“Sebastian!”

I woke with sweat streaking my brow and soaking through my nightshirt into the white expanse of cotton below. My breath was a hurricane; a great storm of fluttering leaves and cracking branches within a moonless night. I felt my heart pounding ruthlessly within the cage of my chest, and I clutched at the fabric covering it. I felt something wet upon my face. Blood? No, I found them to be only tears as I reached up to wipe them away. I had no urge to stop them now, as a great relief flooded my veins that it had been but a dream, and I could no longer be harmed… no matter if I could still feel the sting biting at my wrists and ankles.

The door burst open, and my heart nearly stopped. Startled, I drew the covers quickly around myself; as if to shield an oncoming attack. Sebastian stepped through, bearing a great halo of candlelight. I had called his name in sleep, I was sure of it. 

It was always him… always his name.

He strode over to the edge of my bed which was now crumbled and mussed about by my tossing. I didn’t bother hiding my cries as I glanced at him with bleary eyes. The tears warped my vision and created a soft, golden aura around him that seemed to suit him well. I wanted nothing but for him to hold me, and so I reached for him with fingers I hadn’t realized were shaking. He reached an ungloved hand out to touch mine, soothing the tremors and holding it tight. He sat down beside me; silent as the calm before the storm. I whimpered and sank into his white, buttoned shirt. He pulled me to him with arms as strong as the tree branches which never swayed in the wind howling outside my window. 

My breath was heavy over his shoulder as I straddled his lap to get closer. I breathed in his scent, yet it was more infuriating than it was comforting. It was the same smell that had been in my dream, and I clawed at his back; desperate to find any purchase that would prove to me that he still had flesh and a beating heart. I found it in the way his breath stimulated the little hairs that grew right over my ears. I sighed a shaky sigh, leaning into him through my attempts to calm my breathing. I latched onto the fabric of his shirt, tugging at it as if I believed it would anchor me from drifting away on seas of wine-colored eyes and dark, ebony hair. As if I believed that it was far better to sink than to have my mouth filled with the ocean. 

I did believe that… and it was drowning me.

I shook against Sebastian as a great tempest in which would break apart the very walls and ceilings I stood under. He cradled me so softly, speaking no words; making no sound.

Finally, my sobs quieted, and I managed to take breaths deeper than a sharp gasp. I felt his fingers card through the slate of my hair; calming me still with a gentle touch. I pulled myself away from his shoulder, which was now damp with tears and with mucus. I was a pitiful sight… of that I am certain. I am sure, that with bloodshot eyes and puffy lips, I looked to Sebastian with such a need for my soul to be free, that it must’ve killed whatever piece of him was still human.

“Your nightmare was about me.”

His voice was resolute, and he had not asked. He had stated this with an assuredness I could only dream to have, and I found myself wondering how he never seemed to ask questions genuinely. It was as if he knew all… yet he wanted to tease me into a submission of my own thoughts.

“Yes,”

My voice was shaky and thick with the trails of my tears.

“it was.”

“How did I come to you, child?”

He was low and dark as he pulled me to him by waist and hip. His breath spoke into mine; lips hovering above lips, and I spoke,

“Smoke. You came as a black smoke or fog… and it invaded my being until all I could feel was you.”

He squeezed my side roughly.

“Ah- I-I couldn’t tell that it was you until the stone I lay on turned to snakes, and you seemed to envelop me.”

I gripped his shoulders so tightly that it surely would have bruised a normal man,

“Sebastian… you smell the same as in my dream.”

I buried my nose into his collar, then… breathing in the scent that was turning into more of a comfort than a threat.

“And what do I smell of to you?”

His nose nudged against my neck… hands gliding over the supple flesh of my behind. He took each cheek in hand and tightened his grip until I nearly fell against him.

“Like cedar wood, and cinnamon… clove, and ash and rain. And, oh… you smell of winter; of snow and ice and- oh… how is that possible?”

I keened slowly as I inhaled what seemed to be a caustic blizzard which stormed just beneath his skin.

He pulled me closer still; arms around waist and covering me slowly… gently. 

My thighs spread to clench around his torso as to not be swept away.

“Perhaps… have you ever thought that winter may smell of me?”

It was a rattling thought; one that had the ability to crush every inch of me… for perhaps he was right. Perhaps the only things I knew were of him and in him. Perhaps he was the winter. Perhaps he brought it with him when he had first laid eyes upon me. For each snowflake… each rivulet of dew surely must’ve transcended from the way he kissed me.

If they hadn’t, I do not think I could have comprehended their beauty… for nothing made sense without him there to guide me.

What have I become, I wondered…. what has he made of me.

“Yes,”

I replied,

“I think you must be right.”

He laid me down upon the sheet of stark below, and his lips descended over mine which were nearly trembling. His hands held me safely as he shifted to access my flesh. I felt the words I had been holding back fall onto my tongue; coaxed by the little nips and licks he gave me. 

I could not dam the river of words I breathed over his lips when we parted,

“I have no need for a world without you in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready for some smut 
> 
> //sweats nervously//
> 
> 'crap now i gotta write it'
> 
>  
> 
> no but really, i realized i haven't had any notes so far... and thought i might say something.
> 
> thank you sososososososo much for reading my work. i didn't expect this to get this much positive attention, and i cannot thank you enough, really. without all your comments and kudos etc. i might not have continued this series... or started it at all. overtime i get a comment or a bookmark or a kudo it definitely inspires me to write more. <3 
> 
> so thank you so much!!!! i appreciate you all endlessly.
> 
> your writer,  
> mika


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'He would be a painful death.'

He kissed me again; with teeth and tongue and lip aflame with the thing which had been kindling. He pulled me so closely to him that the small of my back barely caressed the soft river of white beneath. My arms came to spread heat around his neck and shoulders; clinging and searching for touch… for something I could not name.

“You have become but a slave of passion, little one.”   
My legs came to wrap around him, and I gasped when he drew away from me. With whispered words stuck to my wet and trembling lips, I spurred him with a moan I could not chain down.

He lay me down once more, resting his palm upon the sanctuary of my own as his lips descended further down my chin and neck. His hand which was not further occupied gripped illicitly at my waist. He pushed my left down into the plush mattress as the other transcended to the silk of his hair which fell in rivulets around my collar. I gripped a healthy handful, pushing his mouth down to skim over the milky skin of my chest and throat. His grip grew tighter as a wicked tongue sneaked between now pointed teeth to lap at me.

I felt my skin flare with this terrible, insatiable heat as he dragged his slick tongue over every inch of flesh he could taste. My stomach tied into knots that I knew were stronger than those which tie ships to anchor. He nibbled at the meat directly over my heart, and I wished for him to be able to feel it beating. It was a fast, frantic rhythm… and it roared in my ears and through my veins in the form of liquid gold, or perhaps, liquid poison. I knew that either one could kill me. I knew that it would be a painful death.

He would be a painful death.

“Sebastian.“

His name felt right on my lips… so right, that when he flicked wet heat over my nipple I cried out for him again through a gasp,

“Sebastian!”

I wondered why he never seemed to use my name. So often it was ‘young master’ or ‘my lord’… and each time I wished for him to crave my name on his lips the way I did his. I wanted him to break me with it… to carve out every piece of me which was important. My name was important, and he knew. He was teasing me… always teasing me. With everything he did, he thought it through so deftly that I was sure he knew the exact moment I would break. He would always be there to catch me; with knife in hand or with roses.

I felt the need to hear it fall from his tongue once more and I arched into his touch; forever searching for that wonderful height of pleasure only he could make me reach. My grip on his hand tightened as he held it flush against the stark white which seemed to glow under the gentle gaze of the moon.

“Say my name.”

I whisper,

“I want you to say my name.”

There was a pain within my chest that never rested, and I wanted him to make it stop… to make it finally go away.

He breathed into the juncture where shoulder met neck; gripping so tight that it was all I could feel for a short moment of holding my breath. When I let my lungs breathe again, it came in a gasp which he responded to by grinding himself into me where I was spread and clamped around him.

“Ciel.”

His voice was so hot yet so icy, and I couldn’t help the cry that fell from me,

“Ahh!”

“My Ciel.”

I whimpered into his hair, feeling a sort of pressure build within my throat, and it made me buck up against him.

“You are so beautiful.”

My head fell back against the bed sheets as my neck arched for him to suck the flesh.

“And you are also ghastly.”

I could feel the way his hands were almost claws when he compressed my flesh as if it were child’s play. He continued,

“I could- oh, I could say the same of you.”

My voice was barely there; a wisp of a whisper. I felt my eye burning as an intangible flame upon the surface of my iris. It scorched and penetrated in the very same way the one whom created it did. It was once told to me that the more visible the binding was placed on the body of the demon's prey… the stronger. I wholeheartedly believed in that statement, for I felt as though bodies and minds were melding into something so otherworldly that none in any realm could confine it.

“We are not so different, child.”

He whispered.

That was to say, that perhaps, that I was as wicked and as evil to the core as he ought to be. Or, perhaps… he had become far more deplorable, and far less immaculate since the first time he had met me. Maybe it was both; it wasn’t that strange of a thought. Perhaps our bond was condoning us to meld into each other. Perhaps I taught him as much as I believed he surely had taught me.

He then let go of the palm which he was holding; placing it upon the trembling surface of my stomach. He guided his hand across my flesh so gently I found myself wondering if he had even touched me at all. I listened to the way his breath floated over ear and neck and teeth as he spoke over where slate grey hair hung languidly around my halo,

“I can smell the hatred and the sorrow upon your flesh.”

I leaned up to whine into the crook of his neck; kissing him as desperately as I could manage.

“As such, they are yours to control, Ciel.”

His hand traveled to my sensitivity and I moaned deeply into him.

“I am yours to control.”

“Ah, God!”

But as much as that was true, he also held an immeasurable amount of power over me. Of course I could control him with an order, but I did not wish to use such a power when I only wanted to feel something genuine. I was not willing to guise my heart for something which was false and fragile. I wanted him to feel as I did, and I’m sure he already had been… for through the contract he was bound body and mind to a soul in which he craved so endlessly. I knew he could feel every pulse… every beat of my heart against his as he pushed himself against me, and his hand began to massage my arousal.

I began to undulate my hips against him; mouth agape in a silent gasp as he continued to kiss my flesh until it buried under his rough teeth and tongue.

“Augh!”

I gasped as I was lifted, then slammed hard into the wooden headboard of the bed. He crawled up over me, and I hooked my nimble legs around his waist as to sit in the crook of his lap. His hands came to rest above each of my shoulders before sliding down with vigor to my waist where he gripped me.

“Hah-“

He kissed me roughly, and with a passion which I was sure only a creature of hell was horrible enough to burn with.

I ground my hips down unto his lap with an intensity begot from the way he slavered kisses down against the ghosts of ones he had left mere moments before. His grip on me tightened once more; pillows strewn throughout the room as he moved to thrust back up against me. I was still fully clothed, and yet felt as through there was already an incurable fire burning inside of me only he could extinguish. I needed him to take me now, or I feared I would forever be lost and damned from the desperation of my own soul which I loathed.

I felt the hardness of him nudging against my fluttering entrance, and my hands (which I had not even been aware of beforehand) moved to pull and tear at his hair and at his shoulders. I arched my back against the hard wood I was being pressed against; nipples being rubbed into pebbles by the way the fabric of my nightshirt was ground against me with his movements. My breath was hard and fast as it ruffled the black shine of his hair. I pulled him as far against me as possible; breathing him in as I felt the angle of his grinding switch. Suddenly, he was directly pressing against my aching entrance; slowly thrusting his clothed cock into it.

I swayed in tandem with his movements; head crashing back against the oak board behind me.

“Ahh! Hah- mmhn… don’t stop, don't stop!”

It was the simplest of touches, and yet it felt as a tornado of sound and want and fear all wrapped into one big pleasure that boiled me from the inside out.

“F-fuck me. Sebastian! Oh… Sebastian, fuck me-“

I whimpered into the small space between our lips; grasping at his hair and neck as he growled lowly in his throat. He bit at the soft skin behind my ear; whispering softly,

“As you wish, my child.”

I was suddenly lifted once more; roughly tossed unto the crumpled bedsheets in the middle of the bed frame. I felt so much of him… so much that I was in danger of losing myself. As much as I knew that, I could not let him go… could not let myself go. His hands caressed a supple thigh and he pushed me over as to face the far wall. I gripped instinctively at the sheets; back arching in a bridge as I felt him lay against my back. I leaned a crown of hair far into his collarbone; bottom nudging at his hardened length.

I felt his silky hands fondle at the hem of my garment before tugging it up to run un-calloused fingers over the curve of my waist, and down to my underwear which he unceremoniously tugged away from me.

“Hgn!”

I bit at my lips; eyes shut tight in an attempt to stave away my wanting. I knew it would be near useless as I felt him rustle until a single, slicked finger prodded at me. I nodded vigorously; pushing myself back against the intrusion until he headed the call and sunk it deep into my depths,

“Mmmh-“

I felt no pain… only pleasure, as he began to tug and push and prod until he found that spot which he knew I craved to be hit. His other hand gripped at my thigh; lifting it to spread me open as I lay on my side. I sucked in a breath as he began to thrust that slick digit; curling his finger… searching… swaying into me. When he found it I cried out and bucked wildly against him; head knocking into his chest as my leg twitched and shook in his grasp. Seeing this reaction must’ve spurred him forward with some sort of blizzard, for as sure as the winter he pushed that intrusion deeper… harder… faster.

“Oh, fuck!”

I felt him nuzzle at the nape of my neck; drawing breath into the fine hairs there which were damp with sweat.

I felt my lungs contracting to breathe air… to find purchase on whatever intangible breath of power they could reach for. Sebastian drove into me until I was rocking slumped against him; leg only held high by his powerful hand which anchored me away from oblivion. It was the only thing that seemed to remind me that this was neither heaven nor hell… that the veil was not lifted, and he was really here with me.

“There… does that feel good, Ciel?”

“Yes… yes- oh, god! Yes!”

I sobbed as he added a second, then third finger into me. I felt so stretched… so full. I wanted him inside of me. So much pleasure was crowding my brain that I could not think… could not move as I collapsed further into the bed and into him.

“I-Inside-“

I panted shallowly into the twisting, tumbling air; spine arched violently and legs spread so wide it nearly began to hurt.

“I want you inside of me.”

“You would be wise to learn a bit of patience, my lord.”

Came his reply. 

I was too far gone to care at the moment; desperately close to that edge of sweet relief.

I was suddenly flipped onto my chest; hands already clenching around gentle thighs to lift and spread them apart. I immediately sunk my teeth into the sheets. There was a moment wherein I feared it would turn into a writhing mass of serpents, as in my dream… but I knew that as long as Sebastian was there behind me, nothing of the sort would be coaxed without my order. I rolled my hips in anticipation; waiting for him to come and penetrate my fluttering hole.

He never did.

Instead, he gripped my neck roughly as to turn my head around to face him. His other arm came to hold me up around the band of my belly, and it stayed there, fast. I felt his lips caress my cheek and chin before ravaging my own, which were bruised and swollen from before. I felt him press his hips against me, and I whimpered into the wet heat of his mouth. His tongue ran over mine teasingly before he drew back to lick down my throat to my back… slowly… softly. His hands again moved to my thighs to spread them, and my head dropped low as the muscles in my back worked to stay arched.

I felt his tongue draw lower, and lower still until it was flicking wickedly against my taint, and I keened. Pushing back against him, I allowed that tongue to swipe up over my entrance until I was all but begging him to lick me from the inside. His grip augmented upon my thighs as I was spread even wider. My chest fell to the bed, and I was arched further by the gentle push of his hand. I felt him licking at me, and I could not think… could not move. I could barely breathe as he finally pushed himself past my entrance and began to wriggle inside. He fucked me with his tongue until I couldn’t even say his name any longer; teeth gnashing within the confines of my jaw as he gripped and kneaded at my skin and muscle.

“Seba- hmmm… hah! Oh, ahh- Sebastian!”

His fingers traveled down to the insides of my thighs; scratching long nails down the expanse of white canvas. He painted me with red streaks and a dripping of translucent saliva which fell in rivulets of shame down my legs, and over my knees. Yet, still… his fingers wandered. They wandered up my chest and hips… caressing and stroking the skin which was inflamed with heat and want and need. My hips began to cant up into his waiting mouth, and he kissed me where I was so desperate to be filled, and it was infuriating yet exciting.

“Please… put it i-in.”

I mumbled through a storm of gasps and whimpers.

I felt his mouth detach from me, and I shivered from the cold. He gave no reply as I heard him shifting behind me. I could sense his baleful aura through the shivering air, and my hands again fisted in the sheets. I wanted it to be his hair, instead.

“Don’t move.”

I heard him say, just before he pressed the tip of him against me. I wanted so badly to thrust my hips back onto him and impale myself upon that dripping shaft, but I listened to him, and stayed still. It was torture; the way he sunk so slowly into me. I was struggling to hold myself upright buy the time I felt him reach his end. He stayed there, unmoving, for what seemed to be hours. I listened to the deep lull of his breath against my shoulder as he moved to hold my waist, and hold me up.

I nuzzled back against him, and he bucked; shockwaves of energy and pleasure bursting through such a movement. 

“Hgn-“

“Shh… be still, and soundless.”

The order was strange, but I complied with difficulty… especially when his hands gripped the backs of mine, and he began to thrust so slowly yet so earnestly that I could scarcely remember to keep breathing.

I could feel his teeth upon my neck, and his thighs against mine as each thrust sent him bursting into me. My breath was no longer to be considered such; but rather deep pants of desperation. It was as if a storm was tearing down every sinew and thought I had much like it would a building made of stone. I felt a scream building within me, and I felt the need to grind myself back onto him as hard and as fast as I could. I wasn’t cognitive as to why I was so willing to take orders from a servant. Perhaps it was because for once in my life I was allowed to relinquish such a control. Perhaps I had never wanted to become a child so hewn from hatred that I lost sleep and thought on the daily. Perhaps this was never what I wanted. Perhaps I only wanted Sebastian so that I could have someone to hold me, and to guide me… for though he was my pawn, he guarded me.

I could feel the excitement growing within the air, and I could barely stand to keep my conscience. I felt myself drifting into an ether wherein all was silent, save the pants of our breath, and the feeling of being filled until I couldn’t feel. I do not remember when it was that I stopped being able to control myself… but once I did, my voice spilled from me as a waterfall would spill over a cliff. I felt like I was that waterfall; plummeting over the edge of such an unseen territory as I screamed and begged for him to fuck me… for him to wreck me until that it all I was, and all I would ever be.

“Ahhh! Oh, god… oh, Sebastian! I can’t- I can’t it’s too much! It’s too much-“

I couldn’t control it; the raging way in which my hips met his, nor the way my voice could not be condensed into some material matter, but rather a moment of existential reverberation that I did not care to end. He paid my disobedience no mind, for he was growling and writhing atop me as some rabid, horrible beast. It spurred me on terribly, for as his claws raked across the sweat of my back it arched so naturally, and so viscerally that I felt so close to him, and wondered where he ended, and where I began.

I realized, suddenly, that this was my dream.

He had come to me as blackened smoke, for he was, as a being of darkness, an incurable fog; an endless stream of night.

I bucked into him wildly as he continued to pound into me. An intense heat was building within me, and I could not stand the burn. It came over my lungs, and paraded though each nerve as a vessel of ascendance. I collapsed into the great stream of white cloud below me, and he held me up, fast; ruthless and hungry. He was desperate in a way I had not seen from him before. He had stopped thinking awhile back, I had thought… for his eyes were as red as embers, and he was shaking from head to toe. He trembled against me… inside of me.

I felt myself begin to sob... though I was far too gone to care much at all. I could not tell if it was tears or sweat which dropped down my cheeks, but it mattered little. All that mattered was the way his fingers spread me to be taken... to be destroyed. I wanted him to grip onto me so tight that perhaps I would be able to forget, for just a moment… to forget who I was and why we were both here. White-hot pleasure seeped through every inch of me, and I couldn't breathe... couldn't see. I couldn't control anything anymore, and I came hard over the white expanse of sheet below. 

"Ahhhh! Ah- hah... hmmm! Ahh!"

I convulsed under him as if possessed... possessed by him and with him under grey skies hewn from ash, and his essence. He groaned low into my ear and whispered,

"Yes... yes."

He sped his thrusts to an unbearable pace for my overstimulated body. He gripped at me even harder than before; nails and hands callous and begot to kill. I felt him drive himself deep, and stay there; falling over me to bite at skin and bone. I collapsed as he filled me with his seed; breath heaving and scratches bleeding over pale, white skin. 

I felt him drag his forehead down my back; bringing rivulets of ebony hair with him. I shivered when he pulled himself from me. With slick stuck to me, I sobbed again; lost in overwhelm and this feeling which would not leave me. I felt him come up to turn me into my back so he may behold the mess he made of me. I struggled to open my eyes to look at him; irises bleary and cold. A finger ran gentle down my cheek, and his eyes faded back to the color of blood which I recognized as him in all his sanity. I panted, still… gasping and whimpering out sobs as I reached for him to draw him closer.

He came unto me, slowly; laying his body beside my shaking figure. Though he was silent, I knew there was a wall of words between us which I fought to tear down with the way my breath ghosted over him… or the way he kissed my forehead so tenderly, that I broke. I tried to hide my tears from him, yet I knew I never could. He pulled me flush against him; disregarding the sweat and come which was stuck to us… the blood which was stuck to me. I wrapped my arms around him as a child would their parent after having a nightmare. I felt dirty, and defiled… but in a way I wished to revel in… to take pride in, and own.

He let his hands stroke though my hair, and around my waist as he held me. He did not inquire about the state of my sentiments. He did not attempt to make them stop. He let me be as I was, and how I had always been… how I would always be. He would not try to change me, I knew that. I was a king in his eyes; a mighty king whom bared his teeth and killed without a thought for the poor nor for the rich. I was that, as much as I could be. But beneath the ring… beneath the crown… there was a child. And that child was very afraid.

“Your eye glows as the sun does.”

I heard his voice rumble inside of his chest, and I opened my eyes to see a bright, lavender light bathe the surfaces I gazed upon. As my crying slowed, I could feel it buzz and ache with a feeling I had never found before. I blindly searched for his hand; bringing it close to me as to feel it. It was as hot as a burner upon a lit stove; radiating heat and glowing as a white hot coil. When I released him, and he brought it toward my eye I gasped, for it felt as a magnet; pulling and pleading for each end to touch the other. When he finally brought it near enough, I knew we both felt the pulsing… both felt the burning.

I looked up at him through that hazy light; unbeknownst to that feeling which grew and grew, and would never rest.

I whispered softly, as not to head this contract’s beckoned call,

“Sebastian… what have you done to me?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Eyes glued again to stone, I felt her come to rest beside me.
> 
> “There is no more left to be said.”
> 
> The lace of her skirts ruffled in the zephyr; tickling the satin of my sleeve. She sat with me in silence for an unmeasurable amount of time, and I felt something switch; a change in the air. As the breeze continued to blow flower petals by, we watched… and we listened. 
> 
> She did not prod further, and I was thankful.'

It was December fourteenth. I was to turn sixteen… an age I had once though unattainable. Birthdays were never a time for celebration in my mind. To me, it was a day filled with grief and hatred. I did not want to be congratulated, for I felt as if it were a marker of my failure to attain my goal; a goal which only drew nearer with each breath a took… each year I aged.

Sebastian came to dress me.

“Elizabeth will be coming today.”

I felt a deep, mourning groan well up inside my throat, yet I held it fast; swallowing the grief I felt for my cousin. It wasn’t that I did not love her, for I did, as much as I was able to. Her love was so pure… so deep for me… for a person whom she would never be able to know in full detail. I could not love her in that way. I suppose I could not love anyone in that way… for the only way I knew how to give or revive such affections was so visceral, and so violent that I feared I would not be able to feel it unless it tore me to shreds.

I did not deem myself worthy to guide nor to protect someone of such delicacy as her, and I did not wish to be responsible for another heart breaking. I thought, if I had enough decency never to get close, I would not be granted such an opportunity. The consequence outweighed the reward. I feared, though… that such a dynamic would turn to be a contradiction of its self. If I could not explain to her why I was so distant, and so ruined, how could I prevent her from believing I simply did not want her for the way she was?

But I knew that such an explanation would bare far worse consequences.

A chill ran down my spine as I thought once more of my demon. I feared I wanted him much more than anyone could want anything. Wanting him was an understatement. I needed him. I needed him as the sun needs the moon to rest at night. I needed him as the flowers need the stinging bees and insects to pollinate them and keep them alive. As he would sting me, I welcomed such a wound. Why this was, I nearly could not fathom. It was as if a carnal desire had planted its self deep within me… regarding him, and only him; growing with each shuddering breath… each curve of lip and lilt of limb. Perhaps it was because he was a beast, and I was a small, weak human. Perhaps I needed him to ground me…to remind me of all that was. 

I was nothing without him, and I could not tell where we ended and the other began. He was my start, and surely my great undoing. Every glance I stole at him told me that I would not be alive without those eyes, those hands… that mouth. I needed them upon me so that I did not feel this numbness any longer. I needed to feel the sweet relief of justice brought unto those whom did harm to me. He was the only thing that could bring such intense light, and such overwhelming darkness over my soul. 

And I welcomed each in turn.

How could I not? When he was the tide which staved away my eventual stillness; a stillness only he was able to bring upon me, now. Nothing else could touch me. Nothing else could harm me. He was all I was, and all I ever would be. I knew this from the moment I summoned him, and I knew that I would never live to regret as long as he would serve me. I looked upon other human souls as pawns… as pieces to a game which I was allotted to manipulate for the better goal. Sebastian was my game master, and every piece in turn. He was both my greatest strength, and my greatest weakness.

And I was sure he knew every bit of it.

“Ah.”

Was all I managed to say with a tongue so heavy with thoughts I could not shoo. 

“That’s hardly an enthused reaction, my lord. I had thought you would be quite happy to hear that she remembered the occasion.”

“When have I ever been happy, Sebastian?”

He looked at me.

“And when have I ever encouraged celebration over this? It is but another day… another day closer to the end.”

No such emotion rang upon his features nor in his eyes, yet I knew he was toying with me, as he always did. He remained silent as he dressed me, and I drank my tea with not a whisper upon my lips.

“Even if you are right, you are of-age now.”

The weight in his words held more than I could say. I was of the proper age to marry, and to consent. His insinuations were clear. I would no longer have an excuse not to wed Elizabeth… and I was sure he saw me as a man, now. I was no longer the boy in the cage, to him. I was an adult, though nothing would be different.

I wondered if he would learn to respect more of me… instead of taking what he deemed was his with pointed teeth and ashen hair.

“That is no reason to rush into marriage. Elizabeth deserves far better than this.”

I looked at him intently; scaling him up as he did to me.

“Though I shouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Suddenly, I was grabbed by strong, lean hands. The teacup I held crashed into the trolley in my attempt to avoid spill, and I was raised to my feet. Sebastian loomed over me as the shade of a tree would in summer, and I gasped at this sudden bravery.

“You are a servant, dog. You should-“

“Ciel.”

I was silenced by the sounds of my name upon his perfectly sculpted lips; lips which seemed to lack the qualities of those hewn from hell. But they were… and his words were made of poison,

“May you not loose sight of what you are.”

I looked at him with a puzzled expression, brows knitting in confusion as his eyes began to flush and smolder with that bright, golden-red.

“You mean of what you have made of me?”

I whispered back, stomach twisting up to my ribs which contracted with each breath I stole from the air.

He seemed to be struggling with something… something I had not seen in him before, and it frightened me. There was something there, in those eyes. It stood alone as a separate piece of him; something that seemed to have been lost for centuries. Perhaps it was beginning to awaken from a long, peaceful slumber suffocated with dew and blood and the wrath of a demon. 

I wondered how I had not seen it before.

Yet, in those eyes… everything my world had to offer bubbled and spun as a mass of chaos, which he fed to me within a kiss.

Tongues pushed against teeth and lip and fingers tangled in locks kept neat until that final moment. My chest flooded with a warmth that only he could give to me. Only he could make me feel so much pain… so much pleasure, that I begged for it. I was willing to pursue his darkness in order to find the light he lit within my stomach and eyes and hands; all the way down to the vessels which pumped blood through my toes. I gripped at him violently; gasping as each breath was stolen from air which would not permeate our short distance. I whimpered into his mouth as I pushed myself against him; eyes unwilling to open as such a feeling overwhelmed me.

I felt that heat begin to spread down towards my groin, and I quickly pulled away. I hoped for it to end his torment, but instead he seemed to forget all else as I was pushed back onto the bed from which I had just arisen. He clambered over me to suckle at my jaw, my neck… the flesh beneath the lace of my collar. It all engulfed me, and I panted out in short, ragged breaths; moaning as each spot was bit in turn until I was sure there were many red splotches flowering upon such flesh.

He tore open my shirt, and I battled with thoughts of ordering him to stop. Something was pulling at my mind; telling me it was no time for this… but it all just felt so good, especially when his hands drew nearer to the places which were aching for him to touch, and I shuddered violently. I wondered how, in just a matter of moments, he managed to make such a mess of me. It was deplorable, and I scolded myself to be stronger; to will his fire away. But I feared without the flames, I would become as cold as ice… and so I surrendered, and let him take me once again.

Elizabeth arrived early afternoon, when the sun was at its highest peak. I had just finished breakfast, which was a shameful thing to have been reduced to. Yet I concur… for it was merely the fault of a butler unwilling to do his job correctly, and without the urges which seemed to only steal him at night.

“Oh, Ciel! I am so happy to see you!”

Every word was punctuated with upmost excitement as she swiftly approached.

“Happy birthday.”

She spoke into my ear; her embrace warm.

“Elizabeth.”

I murmured, arms coming around her figure to pull her closer to me.

“Your trip wasn’t too overwhelming, was it? Is there anything Sebastian may get for you?”

I asked as I pulled away, holding onto the lavender silk of her forearms. The fabric wrinkled under my touch, and I loosened my grip… if only a bit.

“Oh, how thoughtful of you, Ciel!”

She smiled brightly, and it bloomed across her face as a radiant beam of sun.

“I don’t need anything else but for you to have a fine birthday.”

“Well, if my lady so wishes… then I suppose I must concur.”

I tried not to show the intolerance which pushed to strain my features at her mention, instead taking her arm to lead her to the gardens.

The air was crisp and bright; an unusual circumstance this time of year. It was usually rainy, brisk, and stone cold… as if no heat had ever been permitted to penetrate the air. On this day, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Save for the wisps of grey which secluded only pale blue, and never sun, it was clear.

“Oh, it’s so lovely out today. Isn’t it?”

Elizabeth inquired as we wandered past white roses and stunning proteas. She deeply inhaled… smelling the fresh scent of winter’s flowers; not quite yet in the deep of snow.

“It is.”

I replied, though my voice sounded hollow, and empty.

Hands laced behind me, I followed her gait as she wound herself among the curving paths of the gardens. The cobblestone had been set so long ago, that in between the polished rock there were grasses, weeds, and tiny little flowers which poked their humble heads from the earth. They seemed to me as if they were dancing in the silly breezes; singing hymns I never had the privilege to learn. My eyes were glued so intently to the little buds, I scarcely noticed the lavish blossoms surrounding us. I willed my gaze to follow Elizabeth’s skirts instead. 

Everything reminded me of him.

She stopped suddenly, beneath the wired arch of vine which marked the yard’s merging to the forest. She seemed to still entirety; as if she were listening to hear an angel’s choir on the breeze. It ruffled the bow in her hair and the lace on her collar gently; as if she were underwater. I stepped up beside her, watching. Her eyes closed, and she breathed deeply; hands clasped peacefully in front of her. She looked to trusting… so peaceful.

“It makes me sad sometimes.”

Her voice was lowered; nearly a whisper. It melded with the breeze as snow would dissolve into the fine glass of frosted lakes in January. I did not reply… simply waiting for her to continue at her leisure.

“What happened to you, Ciel?”

She turned to me, then; eyes determined as they locked right into mine.

“You never talk about when you went missing.”

She paused before continuing, 

“Since you’ve come back, you’ve never been quite the same.”

She drew another slow, steady breath… and continued,

“As your betrothed it is my duty to be as empathic and as kind to you as I can be. It seems… it seems as though you do not want me to come too close.”

Her voice lilted as if it held every tear she was too strong to let go of in front of me. Her eyes reflected the light as if she had found her broken cradle burned… along with everything which had went up in flames with me. 

I sighed, trying to calm the way in which my heartbeat began to flutter within the cage of my chest. This is what I had been afraid of. This is why I had been pushing and pushing and pushing her away. And now… now she stood the cliff’s edge with my hand on her waist ready to either throw her off or to pull her back to safety.

“Elizabeth-“

“Ciel, I don’t want excuses.”

I was silenced by her demanding tone. Although I could see the tears in her eyes, her voice did not shake nor become thick with mucus.

I gazed at her for a moment, shocked. I was no longer able to placate this girl into thinking I loved her truly. She knew something was missing, and she was not willing to pretend as though she could not feel the emptiness of the wind on her back.

“Elizabeth…”

I attempted to speak once again,

“I will not deny you the truth of knowing that I have become quite distant from you.”

I paused to be sure that she was truly listening. Her eyes were set like stone, and I knew she clung to each word as a gecko would to brick.

“I kept what happened from you, for fear of tainting your mind. It was not my place, nor my duty to disturb what I knew to be pristine. What happened wasn’t something I was able to discuss, or to burden you with.”

She nodded.

“Yes, but now I am asking you… for the sake of my sanity… Ciel, I need to know why. It eats me up to know that you never smile anymore. You used to smile every time you saw me, and now… now it’s like you’ve forgotten that you could.”   
My heartbeat was relentless, and it would not slow. I did not want the fear I had to reach her. I had never before told a single soul what had happened in that one month, and I feared that telling her would only make the burn in her to know grow brighter. I would never tell her who Sebastian truly was. I would never tell that to anyone. That was my secret… my burden to carry.

I noticed that my gaze had fallen back to the cobblestone, and my eyes snapped back up to hers as I spoke in a tone laced with authority,

“I was taken, Lizzie.”

She stared at me, green eyes drowning into an ocean of blue.

“Taken?”

I suddenly felt extremely vulnerable in that moment; as if I were pleading guilty at a trial in which was unjustly planned.

“I don’t understa-“

“I was taken by a denomination whom tortured me endlessly. I was left in a cage for days… even weeks on end until they deemed me useful. I was treated as if I could not speak… as if I did not have a soul. I-”

I turned from her to that she could not see the pain I knew was glinting within my irises. I felt my legs begin to shake, and so I sat on the stone bench to the right of the path.

Eyes glued again to stone, I felt her come to rest beside me.

“There is no more left to be said.”

The lace of her skirts ruffled in the zephyr; tickling the satin of my sleeve. She sat with me in silence for an unmeasurable amount of time, and I felt something switch; a change in the air. As the breeze continued to blow flower petals by, we watched… and we listened. 

She did not prod further, and I was thankful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was very hard for me to write. i apologize for the late update, but i hope it was well worth the time. :) your feedback is greatly appreciated.
> 
> thank you for your support,  
> mika chan


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'The air seemed to swirl with a kind of power, then. It stirred the atmosphere… charged it with his enormity. He was something I feared I would never understand… though I was desperate to know him… to know all of him.
> 
> “What do you feel, Sebastian?”
> 
> I saw a flicker in his eyes as he stepped closer to me. I could feel his breath upon my face. 
> 
> “What do you feel?”'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 points to anyone who can spot the bit of dialogue inspired by Shakespeare.

Thankfully, Elizabeth Left with a smile on her face that day.

Though I knew she was now closer to me than she ever had been before, the truth still stood that my life may be one cut far too short by a being whom I owed everything to. I could not vow my heart to anyone but him… for no one else knew of it. No one else deserved it, nor reconciled with it as something rampant and wild as he did. It was not Elizabeth alone whom I did not wish to be wed to. It was no personal offense nor jab at her own persona. It was more of a reflection on my own moralities and emotion than anything else. 

It was more of a reflection of him… of us.

“I don’t want to marry.”

I said.

“Yes, as you’ve stated before.”

Sebastian looked at me, puzzled; as if he did not understand my insatiable need to express my distaste.

“What am I to do, Sebastian?”

I grumbled as he followed me up the stairwell.

I did not give time for him to replay as I continued to think aloud,

“She would want to wed in spring.”

I sighed,

“Which is quite soon.”

I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to him anymore.

“Time is an inpatient beast, my lord. It moves far too quickly.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that… and I did not ask him.

As we reached the top of the stairwell, I waited for him to come to stand beside me. I turned to him; my eyes shining back at a pulsing, racing red. His eyes were not like any I had ever seen before. There was no glint of any human emotion within them. They seemed to swirl with rain clouds swollen with the dampness monsoons come to pass. I watched them as they wandered aimlessly about my features. He seemed to be studying me as if I were the key to unlock the most important safe he could ever wish to break. My feet seemed to propel me closer to him, and I sighed; eyes finally breaking away from his immaculate gaze.

I wondered, for the thousandth time, how would the taking of my spirit come about. Would he sit me down amongst flowers… speaking to me as softly as the birds would around us? Would it be fast, and harsh; begot from every bit of frustration he seemed to hold within him? Or would he take it slowly… as the sea takes the sand into its grasp until finally, theres nothing left but the ragged and sharp edge of a cliff? I realized, that if the latter were true, I was sure he had already begun to erode at me. 

He gripped my shoulders tightly as I stumbled towards him.

“Are you even able to feel remorse, Sebastian?”

He looked at me silently; emotionless.

“Love?”

I asked again,

“Satisfaction?”

He released me.

“I know that surely you feel hatred. Every inch of you burns with it… and with grief.”

He still eluded to no sign of speaking, and so I spoke again,

“You can be so angry, Sebastian. Why is that?”

And still, nothing.

He always had held a strange sort of resentment towards mortals. He spoke of them as if he were a cat trying to enter the mind of a mouse… trying to understand wherein may hide for the sake of his next meal. 

I didn’t want to be another mouse.

I wanted him to remember me for centuries after I had melded with the earth. I wanted to haunt him. I wanted him to remember the way I smelled… the way my breath felt upon his neck long after I had become only energy; something that could never be created, nor destroyed.

I wondered how he had become to important to me, that I wished to leave such an imprint upon him.

“Why is it then, that when I lay beneath you, you seem to become such a conundrum? Why is it that you seem to feel so much… yet I know you feel so little?”

The air seemed to swirl with a kind of power, then. It stirred the atmosphere… charged it with his enormity. He was something I feared I would never understand… though I was desperate to know him… to know all of him.

“What do you feel, Sebastian?”

I saw a flicker in his eyes as he stepped closer to me. I could feel his breath upon my face. 

“What do you feel?”

I whispered into his ear as he took me into his arms, and mine came to rest about his neck.

He did not reply as we entered my bedchamber. All was silent as he set me down upon the plush mattress of my bed; turning away from me. His footsteps echoed as he entered the washroom. Each step reverberated within my skull as the ticking of a bomb would. 

Everything he did seemed to do so. 

I heard the water spilling into the porcelain tub as a waterfall would a river, and my gaze wandered upwards to the high ceilings. It took a time to fill the tub in which he did not return. 

I wondered why I was so desperate for him to. 

I finally heard him enter the room once more to ready my bedclothes and to fetch a towel. I continued to study the arches above me, refusing to let my mind wander too far.

He approached again to begin to undress me, and I let him do so without an inkling of attention. I could still feel the way in which his aura seemed to bubble and sting the air with its need to escape the confines of this form of his.

I let it be.

“Am I only a game to you?”

I inquired again, voice quiet and dulled by thoughts of never receiving an answer.

He took me to my bath.

“I do not lie, Ciel.”

His use of my name was unusual, yet not unwelcome. I did not comment as he continued to speak with that tone made of the finest of velvets.

“And so I will say that this is strange. I cannot remember the last moment wherein I could not answer a question with confidence.”

As I stepped into the water, he discarded his coat to roll his sleeves up to his elbows.

“But I do not know, young one.”

He wasn’t looking at me as he began to wash my hair; hands massaging my scalp as if they knew on their own where to find it… for he had memorized every inch of me.

“I truly do not know.”

I did not reply.

As soon as I was thoroughly washed, he followed me back to my bed. I noticed the curtains were open, and I stopped seated. My gaze fixed outside at the way the breeze moved the trees to its song. The monsters whom existed within my mind, and within my manor did not exist outside of them. The world was wide in its enormity, and I remembered in that moment how truly small I seemed to be. Everything which existed to me… everything which weighed on me as an unbearable burden was unnecessary. Even the way in which Sebastian could manage to kiss me breathless was insignificant to everyone else but me, for no one else could know of it.

“If you do not know, then why should you continue to engage in things which demand the answers from you?”

I allowed my tone to become slight. I spoke in a way which seemed to cause no echo; permeating Sebastian’s ears alone. He knelt in front of me, and held my hands both tight in his.

“Because the exquisiteness of such a creature transcends me.”

“But you are the darkness… how have you learned to appreciate something so fragile?”   
“It is not something that can be taught.”

He paused before continuing,

“Perhaps this fragility you speak of is illusionary.”

His eyes scanned my being with a dark sort of wonder.

“How can that be? What should it matter if my soul is as big, and as strong as the mountains, if no one but you and I shall encounter it?”

“Whom else would you know enough to see it?”

I stood suddenly.

“You are strange tonight, Sebastian. I can feel it in the air.”

He released my hands as if they had been torn from him.

“Don’t you see, that the thing in which you choose to fright me with, I seek?”

“I cannot help what I am, my lord.”

“I know you cannot help it, and neither can I!”

I pushed him aside to pace the floors, speaking still,

“Life can be no commodity to me!”

I spun around quickly to face him as he turned to glance at me.

“The crown, the comfort of my life… seems to be your favor!”

I approached him with pleading eyes; no such strength begot from me before.

“And I do feel that it has been lost.”

A dainty hand came up to stroke his ebony hair beside his face.

“I do feel that it is gone.”

“My lord-“

“But the conundrum is,”

I interrupted,

“that I never would have had it lest you had not given it to me.”

He was silent.

“And so this is why I ask these things of you. I am afraid that this is all in vain unless I truly am to surface victorious… unless I have not lost sight of being unafraid.”

“My master… what on earth would you have to fear?”

I had plenty to fear. Which is not to say that I was frightened of any of them. I had every right to be afraid of loneliness… of being taken from my bed within the darkness of the night. I should be afraid of storms, of monsters, and of failure. Though I wasn’t… and I had not been for quite some time. For I was a kin of darkness, and though my own species had a tendency towards becoming monsters… I was less afraid of the real ones, and more disgusted by the ones whom haunted my dreams. The very thing I had once wished to be protected from, protected me now. I was unwilling to fail… and so I accepted whatever means which would abide to my goals. But now that I had let myself become something so dark… I was forced to remember the light which still shone bright within the core of me. He brought about so much of it… and through his darkness, he held it there.

I let my hand drop back down to my sides; the chaos of my mind quieting. 

I looked up at him though glimmering, bicolored eyes.

“I am afraid of you, Sebastian…”

I said,

“and all that you do to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so shit is about to hit the fan :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“God… this has to stop, Sebastian”
> 
> I whispered quietly.'

The wind howled relentlessly against the glass on my window. I watched, sleepless, as it shook and strained its own edges. I had heard the clock strike midnight long ago… and though my body was ready for the hands of sleep to take it, my mind was wondering through fields of thought which were endless and full of brambles. Lightning cracked over the ridge of forest below, and the trees trembled with thunder. The manor, however, was quite still and peaceful. Its quiet hung in the air and reached every inch of darkness until even the demon within its walls was soundless. 

The single candle set beside my bed flamed amazement. My eyes were drawn to its burning, and I sat up to look around its halo of light. It illuminated little space, yet the bit of the room it managed to tough was tainted golden. It flickered as though it were a living thing, and I though to myself how odd it truly was that such a little piece of flame was capable of burning a village to ashes. I reached for its brilliance, grasping the silver handle. Stepping onto the carpet below my bed, I held it out in front of me.

I crept down the hall; wooden floors creaking below my feet as I walked. My fingers brushed the cool wood of the banister as I descended the stairs. I saw a bright light glowing from the kitchen’s doorway, and I knew Sebastian would be there, baking and preparing food for the day ahead. I willed my footsteps to be silent as I approached the soft sounds emitting the room as he worked. I set the candle down by the doorway, hovering just outside. I listened to him mixing batters and chopping fruits for no longer than a minute before he finally spoke up,

“I know you are there, young master.”

I stayed silent and unmoving, wondering if he might invite me into his space.

“If you are not going to sleep, you may as well come sit so I can make you some warm milk.” 

My hand slipped away from the boundaries of the doorway as I stepped inside, silently making my way over to the island where a chair was already placed. I sat; manners lost for the moment as my elbows rested upon the used wood. I watched him as he lay a pot upon the already lit stove. He fetched the bottle of milk from the counter and poured a reasonable amount into the pot. I rested my head in my hands, the peace of his atmosphere overcoming my previous stress.

“Sebastian,”

I asked,

“When do you sleep?”

He turned back to his work; kneading soft, fluffy dough.

I watched as his forearms flexed with each roll and fold of the substance at hand; sleeves rolled up so his pale skin was exposed and gleaming.

“I do not.”

“What?”   
I asked again, curious.

“I do not sleep.”

“Not ever?”

“No.”   
What a strange thing he was, really. He did not sleep, nor drink, nor eat, nor bathe himself (at least that I knew of). His existence was set up in such a way that one might believe he would transcend physical form… but yet, there he was… right in front of me. 

I wondered how I had not seemed to ponder this subject before.

“Do you rest, then?”

“Why would I have the need to do that?”   
He turned to me, brushing flour off of his perfect hands.

“Well… don't you tire? Don’t you get weary and long for silence?”

“I have had enough silence in my lifetime, Ciel. I need but one thing from Earth, and that is you.”

I was silent, staring.

“You know that, little one.”

He turned back around, rolling pin now in hand.

“I don’t understand you sometimes.”

He did not reply.

“No, I don’t understand you at all”

He sighed, then.

“You are not supposed to.”

I suppose he was right. I should not ask questions about things I do not want the answers to.

He neatly rolled the dough until it was a sheet… and with a cookie-cutter, he began to shape little biscuits. When all were rolled and cut, he placed them upon a baking sheet greased with butter. He quickly sprinkled a generous amount of glittery sugar over each of them before placing them in the oven to cook.

“What about my milk, Sebastian?”

I grumbled, no longer in the mood to inquire nor commute with him politely. He didn’t respond, but rather glared at me… to which I glared straight back in return. It was as if he were testing me… to see how far my resilience as his master would go.

He finally drew a teacup from the cupboard, setting it daintily upon the wooden countertop. He poured the milk into the cup without flaw, and put the pot by the sink for Meylene to wash in the morning. He brought me the warm cup, setting it in front of me with the soft ‘clack’ of china against wood. I brought it towards me. It was far too hot to drink quite yet.

He leaned against the counter across from me, arms crossed and eyes fixed.

“Why do you stare like that?”

“What else am I to do, young master?”

“I don’t know… clean something!”

I said, irritated at his lack of shame.

“You surely do not think that it is my job to work on the manor alone, do you?”

He chuckled slightly.

“No. Don’t be crude.”

“It is not always me acting in such a way, my lord. If I remember correctly-“

“Oh, shut up!”

I scowled. 

It was painfully obvious what he was speaking of… and I could not help the blush which came to taint my cheeks pink.

It was him and him alone which dared me to act in such ways. I couldn’t help it; the way in which I was drawn to him. It was as if there were a magnet stuck in each of us. The closer we came, the harder it pulled against my flesh and tore away at my bones until I was nothing but the mess of a human beneath him.

He smirked at my remark, and I hated him for it.

I didn’t want to have to feel this way any longer… and yet, I found myself wishing that it would never end.

I stood, hand clenched into fists.

“How can you do this to me?”

His expression changed into something unrecognizable. 

“I can’t do it anymore, Sebastian!”

He pulled himself away from the counter to step closer to me as I rounded to island to see all of him.

“You are so utterly confounding!”

“That is not all that I am.”

He murmured.

“No.”

I replied.

“You are also cruel and heartless. I shouldn’t expect anything more from you, but I can’t help but wonder how you are when you whisper things to me. You become so close… so overcome, it seems. Is that not true?”

He stepped closer.

“You are strong, and wild, and cannot be contained. You kill and murder without conscience or sacrifice… but it has seemed that you are the one thing which has given me breath.”

He came even closer, and I stood there, unmoving.

“So it seems that you are just as much of a conundrum as I am.”

I paused, waiting for that recognizable mass of swelling grief and frustration to leave my throat.

“Because you are so gentle, and kind, and soft.”

I whispered.

“You are unknown… undiscovered.”

It seemed as though the fire in his eyes had caught upon my shirt’s sleeve. 

“You are beautiful.”

HIs arms came around my waist, and I felt a numbness enter me.

“And you are mine.”

His lips caressed mine with a firm, strong softness. As my arms came around his neck for the millionth time, I wondered how I could yearn so harshly for more of him, yet wish at the same time that we had never met. As I returned his kiss, something akin to acceptance washed over me. It was a wave of muslin draped over the velvet of an armchair; come to rest so suddenly and peacefully. It came over me as a shadow and clung. My heart became to empty, yet filled with the acute knowledge of my unwavering fate which had been chosen. Every inch of me welcomed it with warmth, and I depend the kiss until it felt as though he were baring all of my weight. 

He lifted me then, to place me upon the countertop. I did not allow him to break his lips from mine… for as much as they tore at me, they welcomed me in graceful arms. Even at a larger height, he was taller still; if only by an inch. I wondered how much of me had changed because of him, and not with age. He painted me into a whirling haunting; naming me as a beautiful wilderness which would never quiet. But evil can do that. Evil can lie, and cheat, and break apart the very drawstrings which had once held the door open for one to walk through. Yet still, I wondered what evil truly was… what signified the justification of punishment?

Was he changing? 

Or was I, still?

He pushed me down until I could feel each bone in my spine roll and collide with the wood in turn. It was a cold surface; one which was heated quickly by my beating heart and spreading legs. He leaned between them to kiss my neck and shoulder with eagerness. His hands wound around me to touch and to caress… and I melted into the heat of him. My ankles hooked behind his back to anchor him to me, and he growled lowly into my ear. My eyes closed as fingers tangled into hair and around thighs.

Every inch of skin was aflame with him and his turbulence. It was as if he would never consume enough of me no matter how many times he breathed deeply into the crook of my neck, or bit at my collar and ears. He was feral; exciting and enchanting as each breath he took into me shuddered and spun in the air and around my head. He ground down against me, and I canted my hips up to meet him as he took my mouth under his once more. My arms wound tighter around his neck as I pulled him further against me, because I needed every bit of touch he could give.

His mouth pulled away slowly, and I licked his reddened lips with a hot, searing tongue. He chuckled, and thrust against me harder.

“Ahhn-“

I cried out before he cut it off with his teeth; biting at my bottom lip. Every bone in my body sung to a tune only he could conduct, and it spun and whirred around the air with each burst of pleasure… each nerve stimulated. He bit into my neck… my throat and collarbone. His teeth scraped along pale flesh, and left pink marks in the wake of their storm.

“Oh… Sebastian, please.”

“Hmm?”

He murmured against my heated skin as short nails dragged along the nape of his neck. I was desperate and wanting; every part of my begging for him to fill me… to pound into me relentlessly.

“Take me.”

I whispered back, breathlessly,

“Take me, now.”

He hummed with delight as I spoke to him, tugging up my nightshirt to reveal my nakedness. I gasped as the cool air hit my flushed arousal. He quickly unbuttoned his shirt and cast it aside. He then released the buckle of his trousers and withdrew himself, and I moaned as hot flesh teased me.

“Hah- ah!”

I was incoherent; mind fuzzy and twisting with thought of only him and his touches. I felt him reach above me to grasp a vial of cooking oil and spread it over his palms. He leaned down to breathe hot breath into my ear, and each hair upon my neck stood in turn; stimulated by his teasing. I could feel his hand creep lower, and suddenly it encased my begging need.

“Aaah- ohh… Sebastian!”

I was breathless as he began to stroke me, and I felt as though I were to come apart at the seams. The pleasure soaked into each cell of my body; making me into a mess of moans and little thrusts of narrow hips. 

My back arched off the now-heated wood; fingernails scraping along the countertop as one, long finger entered me.

“You have nothing to fear, little one,”

he whispered, pushing his digit even farther into me; reaching, stroking, pulling,

“but fear its self.”

He spoke of me, and each desire I could not pull away from him. He spoke of each vein in my body… each hair upon my head, and each freckle which spotted alabaster skin. His voice was something I had once never dreamed of encountering. I could not say I was ashamed of anything I had ever done… but if I could regret something, it would surely be meeting him.

If I could relive something, it would surely be the same, as well.

I whined high in my throat as another finger joined the first. It was nearly too much; the way he spoke and moved his hands… the way his perfection never allowed perforation. He continued to fuck me with those slicked fingers as his stroking hand left me to spread the oil over himself. The air contained a swarm of darkness which was not there before, and I wondered if it had come from him. I wondered if he could not contain it any longer… as if it had grown larger, and stronger than he, and he could no longer fight its will to escape. I wondered if I had brought upon this sickness… and if it were my decadent moans which spurred its enormity fourth.

A third finger entered me.

In that moment, I had lost all ability to think clearly. All I could feel was him inside of me; pulling pleasured cries from my lips with vigor.

It was becoming too much to handle, and I wondered if it were because of my many nights spent without him that I was so overwhelmed by him, now.

“I can’t, Sebastian… I’m going to fall apart, please!”

I moaned; breathless… and when I gazed upon his features, I noticed just how sharp his teeth had become. His eyes were flaming red; begging to withhold every power they had ever encountered. I gasped as his lips drew up my neck to kiss around the lobe of my ear; teasing, pleasing… begging. He was mine, and I was sure to own him. Yet such a contract was bound to be mutual as such nonsensical markings of ownership adorned each of our bodies and minds. The blackness of the seal upon his hand began to shine a distant purple; something it had rarely done before. I had not given an order, yet his teeth and tongue and fingers worked me into a frenzy so deep I was sure I would never return. It had been my own eye which had glowed with gleaming determination before. Yet within the darkness which seemed to grow around us it was him which was shining with such a frosted tempest.

I could feel every detail of him pushing pleasure into me as I rocked against the countertop. My fingers dug into the edge of the wood as I set my jaw with forbearing denseness. 

“Hgn!”

I closed my eyes within the effort to reign my senses back into myself.

“God, Sebastian! Please!”

And suddenly, he released me.

I took in a breath full of the stuffy air. It smelled of oil and sweat, and I took it willingly and deeply into my lungs. He traced his hands over every inch of my stomach and chest; following the lines of each rib which would protrude as I took breath. His nails were cool and biting as he gently scraped them down my sides. My skin was so translucent in its paleness, that even the lightest scratch left searing, red marks upon its softness. I enjoyed the thought that his marks would be visible for a time.

I felt him push himself against me, and my breath suddenly caught in my throat. I found myself wondering how, or why this had begin… and I also found myself caring not for the time, nor place. He began to push his hardness into me with crushing hedonism. My breath began coming in short as I willed my hips to relax and let him in. It was so good… too good. I grew desperate for him to fill me to the hilt, and so I again wrapped myself around his waist and pulled him fully into me.

He braced his arms on either side of my head, chuckling slightly… though his eyes were blazing.

“Greedy little imp.”

He murmured into the flesh of my neck as he began to grind himself against my entrance.

“Ahh! Ah… hn-“

I fisted each hand into his hair; pulling and stroking. It was all too much, yet not enough. I was becoming overwhelmed with his heat; his open-mouthed kisses, his hips… the utter pleasure he willingly fed to me. He was so close; suffocatingly so. Yet I wanted him closer. I wanted him to be as rough with me as he pleased. I needed to feel more than just his amazement as it flamed and burned against me until I was nothing. I needed him to break me apart so that he may fix my broken pieces.

He felt too good, and I could hardly take it any longer. He hadn’t even ceased his teasing, yet I was already scarcely close to losing myself to him. He was a beast all his own. I dare to say he was unlike anything else which had ever existed, or would ever come into physicality. He was a feather floating upon notes of obsidian, he was a muse, and a scholar. He was the snow and the ash… all hewn into one being which crested and was drawn fourth by desperation and fear. And yet, lately he had a certain sense of kindness in his eyes whenever he looked at me. He seemed to understand me more and more as time passed… and even now, as he willingly took me in the most ludicrous indecency, he seemed to feel it more… want it more. He enjoyed teasing me and making me come undone, yet he also seemed to connect with me in a way he hadn’t quite grasped before.

“Ahhh- fuck!”

I cried as he took liberty in pulling himself completely out before snapping his hips forward and impaling me completely upon him. Hands tangled into his hair, I gazed up at him to find his eyes fixed upon my features. His mouth was parted slightly; only to allow the very tips of his fangs to peak through the plumpness of his lips. His eyes were aglow with a fiery orange; less red than before, yet more aflame with lust and the fires of manors past. They searched every inch of my gasping mouth and lidded eyes as he thrust again and again into me. I clung tighter to his hair, and he growled with now-slitted eyes. I threw my head back in bliss, wanting this pulsing thrill to never escape me. His illicitness inundated me as the darkness which seemingly spilled from him grew uncultivated; as if he were losing it completely. 

I arched my back as his hands slid under it to hold me upright. He took me from the counter and into his arms; thrusting wildly, still. His hands slid to grasp my rounded ass as he bounced me up and down; in and out. I whined against his shoulder; legs wrapped around him as my fingers grasped so hard to his scalp it was sure to injure a normal man. But he was no normal man. The way he moved was proof. It was too fast, too good… the positioning was just right as he hit that tempestuous spot inside of me.

In and out, in and out… in and out.

Every time he thrusted it allowed me uproars pleasure, and I began to cry out louder; voice becoming hoarse. I closed my eyes and allowed this to overwhelm me. I bit at his shoulder until I was sure it was bleeding, but I did not care.

“Does it feel good?”

He always asked such in a voice laced with darkness.

“Ahh- y-yes! Yes!”

Suddenly, I was pushed roughly against the far wall. The wallpaper felt cool and smooth against my boiling skin, and I threw my head back against it in an attempt to calm my senses. It did nothing to help still the onslaught of my climax which was building and building beneath my skin… under his hands, and between our lips as he kissed me roughly. He found me endearing, I was sure. I was as to him as the forbidden fruit was to Eve… and I somehow reveled in the sort of depravity which came about his lust. He was my sun, and my moon. He was the most handsome man one would ever be lucky enough to lay eyes upon, and he served me well. But something else had taken over the contract to allow for this to build into such a foaming brine, that not even mariners would plunge into it. Something else had entrapped us both, and I wasn’t sure I feared it one bit.

I wasn’t sure I didn’t, either.

“Ohh… hgn, Seb- Se- ahh!”

My back scraped along the surface of the wall as he thrusted me against it. He pulled away from the kiss to bite and suck upon my sensitive neck, and I sighed with contentment. I had not enough sense in that moment to even call out to him; only to moan and to whine into his hair which I clutched to violently. He began to thrust faster, and somehow I knew his end was approaching.

“H-Harder-“

I managed to command, and he obliged wonderfully.

“Ahhh!”

I arched my back and neck, eyes closed and every muscle tensing as I felt my orgasm approach as a freight train upon sparking tracks.

He growled into my ear, biting at the lobe,

“Do you want to come, little one?”

I nodded vigorously, lost.

“Then come.”

I fell apart.

My hands slipped from his hair and ran blunted nails down his shoulders and back as I screamed. My body convulsed in his grasp as I spilled sticky fluid between us. My head tossed back upon the wall behind me. My hair was clinging to my forehead and to my neck; messy and tossed as I was. I felt myself clenching mercilessly at his cock which was buried deep, and I gasped and panted once I caught my breath. I whined through the last few moments of pure bliss and pleasure; biting my lip as I forced my eyes to open.

Sebastian was gazing upon me with an expression of violent yearning, yet I was unafraid. I stroked and combed my fingers through his hair as he came; filling me. I whimpered as I felt the hotness of his climax flow into the depths of me. His darkness swelled into a mass around us as it twisted its way through the air. He gripped my arse with strong hands, pulling me open to thrust lewdly into my freshly-fucked hole. My forehead fell against his shoulder as he did so; bringing my arms around his shoulders to sensually clutch at him. 

I felt him soften and slip out of me… and light returned to the room once more.

I did not move as he carried me back to the countertop to lay me down upon it once more. My nightshirt was a wrinkled mess upon me, yet I did not mind one bit. He leaned over me to kiss at my lips once more. I returned his eagerness, running my tongue along his bottom lip. He prodded my mouth with his; licking softly. I licked out so that our tongues collided and slipped together quickly and softly before retreating back to little kisses and nips. His hands gripped my thighs; massaging them slowly and sensually. My hands ran along his biceps, up again into the softness of his hair. He broke the kiss gently, eyes still intimidatingly close to mine. There was something different about him, again… yet it was not so confounding. I understood very well what this change in him was, now… and it frightened me to the ends of the earth.

“God… this has to stop, Sebastian”

I whispered quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um so
> 
> you're welcome for smut????
> 
> im also very sorry - but you will forgive me soon enough just wait


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'There was something dead in the water.'

And thus, came the separation.

I began to push and to avoid… demanding that I could undo my own buttons, or wrap my own towel around myself. Any touch from him was sure to rekindle fire, and I was frightened of being burned for the first time in my life; for something strange had happened… and I was frightened that he, too could be harmed. No sense was to be made of my actions nor emotions. He held his gaze steady… though I knew he had to have been choking down a growl. I had felt his arms enough times to know him well.

It was three minutes to ten, and I was readying for bed when he emerged from his task of cleaning the washroom after I had bathed.

“Young master.”

I looked up from my fumbling, welcoming a distraction from my frustration of not being able to tie a simple bow correctly. 

“What is it?”

He stood there for a moment with glaring eyes and a chest which was rising and falling a slight more dramatically than usual. He seemed to be gathering himself. When he finally moved, it was toward the tie which was hanging limp upon the ruffles of my collar.

He knelt before me.

“Really, now… haven't I ever taught you to tie properly.”

“I’m sure you have. I simply haven’t needed to know previously.”

“Ah, so you discarded my teachings?”

He looked at me with impishness, and I felt my heart flutter beneath his hands. I had hoped he hadn’t felt it, though I knew he had.

“Only the ones which had no benefit to me at the time.”

I replied with equal spite.

“I suppose that is a prime example of your character, is it not?”

I paused for a moment, calculating something in which I had no hopes of ever knowing.

“Not just mine.”

“Ah, that’s right. You are but an example of humanity… aren’t you?”

“All is simply the way that is it.”

I replied with a harshness I had not intended to let seep through my lips.

His fingers slid along the ribbon gracefully as he let go; a perfect bow hanging in their wake. 

“I suppose you are right.”

He said. His voice took on a darker tone, and he cleared his throat with a small cough. I leaned back on my hands, gazing up at the ornate ceiling tiles above me. When I heard him move again, his body drew closer to mine, and he hovered above me. He laced his fingers through my hair, and I sighed. Something ate away at my stomach. It was so grotesque and so loud, I feared it was a beast of its own caliber; something indestructible and mean. It felt angry, and full of grief. I suppose I was only trying to distance myself from my own sentiments… trying to make them into a conquerable monster. I knew if I let it, it would become such an insatiable master.

As his hands stroked along my cheeks, it grew in size and in intensity. My stomach felt as if it were twisting in knots and tearing its self apart at the seams. I could almost hear its angered cries as it screamed its way into my mouth,

“Stop it!”

I swatted his hands away, flinching as I ripped myself away from him. I scrambled back onto the sheets, hands gripping at the stark cotton. He looked both angry and confused, eyes churning and brows knitted together. I was suddenly breathless as I stared at him. I was shocked by my own actions. I looked back at him with the same boiling mixture of emotion he was emitting, and I felt my eyes burn with the tears I felt were too unnecessary and weak to spring. I blinked them away, scanning his person for any sign of threat, yet there was none. I asked myself why a simple touch had caused such a whirring reaction from me. His touch had always been different… and this new estrangement was alarming and worrisome.

“Sebastian-“

I whispered, gathering my knees to my chest and giving my face the sanctuary of my forearms. My voice came out muffled when I spoke,

“I’m sorry… I-“

I had not the words to explain the causticity within me. 

I felt ashamed.

He cleared his throat as he had earlier, yet this time it was awkward and seemed to echo emptily about the room. I willed myself not to cry, for I could not find the reason for the welling of such audacity. 

I felt him grow darker.

“Very well, then. I will let you get your rest, my lord.”

I truly did not want him to go… yet I allowed him all the same.

“And do remember,”

He continued at the door,

“I will come if you call.”

He should have been seen as the lesser, more grotesque creature… but I found myself thinking that somehow I did not deserve him. 

And he did not deserve me.

The door clicked shut behind him.

And so we began to drift slowly. I let the divide between us grow until eventually I begun to bathe and change on my own. I had not the dexterity required to tie a bow, and so that is the one intimacy that I let live. Ever since I had shied away from his touch… from his kisses… he had stopped attempting to give them to me. Though I could tell he hungered for me, still… his eyes were insatiable, and they always seemed to be burning.

Many days passed this way until I had found that it had been weeks without his touch as assistance. I both congratulated and damned myself for this stubbornness… for this fear installed in me. It had sprouted from me as if it were buried there all along; waiting until the earth above it was soft enough to poke its head through. Instead of light, this unwarranted flower bloomed in darkness, it seemed. It seemed to want to dance on clouds of ebony and silk. It would lather its self in the soil depravity brought until it would rot with such a beautiful decay. It was a black rose over the heat of summer’s ash, and it burned red hot. It intoxicated me as if I were mad with drinking. It taught me to be warned and to trust its sorrow.

The water I was staring into was as clear as glass. The forest around me echoed with songs both bugs and birds alike were singing. It lulled and ebbed as a beautiful chorus; the river its steady conductor. The little ripples and waves distorted my face. The only thing that could be seen of me were the vague features which made up my distinctions. My eyepatch, the slate grey of my hair against the green canopy and bright blue and white above… those eyes which seemed to be too tired to cry. It caught glimmers of ivory skin and rose petal lips; captured them in an endless, dancing snapshot.

My fingers sunk lazily into the freezing water. Soon it would freeze over and pile with snow. Perhaps an unknowing deer would see it as solid ground and step out onto the stream, meeting its demise with a cold, watery fate. If an animal did get caught, it would surely freeze to death by the next morning. Though I suppose the animals knew this forest as well as I knew my own home. Their intuition was sharp; it had to be out here. One wrong move and a wild fox easily catches the nave rabbit. This dynamic was demonstrated over and over again in every species, every race, and in every country. It played out countless times, and each time the fate of the fight always had the same winning bet.

The snow had long ceased churning through the air. It now lay in heaps at my feet; melting in some places, freezing in others. I shivered in the cold, wrapping my scarf tighter around my neck for comfort. I had asked Sebastian to let me go walking alone for once. He had been hesitant, to say the least. I had to remind him that I was an adult now, and that I could handle a small walk outside the manor unaccompanied. His reluctancy was worn down, and he let me go. 

It seemed as though something inside him was breaking.

I wanted to be alone with my thoughts for once. I wanted to be able to know that I was truly alone and could make any sound, assume any position of rest without worry of someone beholding me. I slouched as I sat beside the river; leather shoes sinking into the crunchy snow. The little piles of white around me were laced with dirt and plant matter, and it turned them green and yellow and brown around the edges. My mind was numb with quiet, and I gazed coolly down into my own reflection. 

I finally tore my gaze away to stare up at the threes which were still and piled with snow. A few leaves were rustled by the frigid breezes, but all was soundless save for the sweet calls around me. I felt trapped in my own quiet. I urged myself to wonder, yet I could conjure no such force from my tiredness. Every limb felt heavy and weak; my fingers dragging along the glassy surface as they floated in the water. Once I was able to be lonely, I had realized that I wasn’t full of sadness or despair… I was simply filled with emptiness. I was an oxymoron in and of myself. I had no thought of how to deal with something as strange and winding as Sebastian. He continued to confound and brush against every raw and tingling nerve until each and every light and darkness were revealed as equals.

What to do of him, I wasn’t sure. Though I was sure that something inside me was full of everything and nothing all at once. It dug into me as sharp as razors, and I could feel it. God, I could feel it as if I knew it were there for my eyes to behold. Throwing up walls and establishing boundaries had proven to be hard enough… but I knew that if I did not let them be, now, I would surely never know if such woulds were self-inflicted.

I realized that though I used to believe that my home felt a lot like arms and a heartbeat… now I was beginning to think that home felt more like a prison made of steel and bone. I knew I had to decide if I was capable of taking such threat into my own hands. 

He was the most beautiful sin I had ever come to know. 

The moment I saw him, I knew I was staring hell straight in the eyes, and I was not afraid. I had wondered for so many years why I had lacked such fear, and now I knew it was because those eyes were my own personal hell… and I was made to deal with it as best I knew.

He was the dark sky which let me become his falling star, shining and burning; the only sliver of blue amongst an endless sea of obsidian velvet. I had known from the start that he would swallow me alive into that blackness… and I wasn’t sure if I was becoming more accustomed, or more afraid of the idea.

The forest sung around me as I watched the tiny ants mingle over leaves and under rocks… noticed how the clouds swelled and changed in the reflection of the water. A pale, grey moth fluttered past my freezing ear. It was small, and drew circles in the air in front of me. I was silent as it landed over a shining grey rock near my feet. It’s wings moved slowly and deliberately; showing off the tiny spots and intricate lines painted upon its fragile wings. Its antennae twitched and sputtered as I watched it with interest; wondering. It crawled upon the smooth surface of the stone before taking flight once more. This time, it did not wander aimlessly about the freshness of the air. 

It hovered over the water’s surface; daring to caress its feet against several small leaves which were stuck to the bank’s edge; hanging on. It finally chose a place to land; its small body flowing with the river’s waves as its itty raft bobbed in the sparkle. It stilled, and it seemed as though the air its self drew in a sigh. The sight of this puny creature gave me a sense of peace. It knew nothing of the world’s cruel mannerisms. It needed nothing but to survive, and that was well enough for it. It wouldn’t live long… but it would never know that. It had to concept of time. 

There was something alive in the water.

The thought gave me hope.

The leaf in which it perched, with its soggy, brown edges felt its stem begin to pull from the sludge in which it clung. The moth’s wings gave a small flutter; their colorless scales glinting in the winter’s sun. The creature had wings of its own. It could fly away if it were caught in the danger of a flood. As it were now, it stayed upon that leaf… for it knew it had the gift of flight. It let its self stay graceful upon the faded green. It cared not if the leaf were to be swept away in the stream of silvery water as it misted over the grey riverbank. 

I saw its proboscis lash out to unfurl in search of nectar. When it found none, it began to journey further to the water’s edge. It reached out to feel over the tempest; curious and wondering. It’s wings unfolded as its support bobbed harshly once again. Though it was busy in search of food, its instincts were still sharp as a knife’s blade. 

I admired nature’s thoughtfulness. 

Suddenly, as it reached the tip of the frond, the splash of a small frog diving into the river upstream caused the leaf’s capsize, and the moth was lost beneath the water’s surface. It would have drifted far downstream before it knew it had been killed. And so another small speck of beauty was lost… unnoticed, and the leaf was nowhere in sight.

There was something dead in the water.

I heard the frog begin to softly sing.

When I made it back to the manor, I was somber. I let Sebastian take my coat and scarf as I regarded him dully. 

“How was your walk, then?”

“Fine.”

I replied.

“Did you encounter anything strange?”

I paused by the stairwell. He was close behind.

“No.”

I said,

“Nothing at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's gonna be some smutty stuff next chapter... but don't get too excited (ok you can be a little excited). it's not what you think... well, at least it isn't YET.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I attempted to calm my stuttering breath to no avail; pushing my damp hair out of my forehead.
> 
> Oh, Sebastian… what have we done?
> 
> With still shaking hands and a racing heartbeat, I silently closed the door to his room.'

I was playing my music alone. The violin sang and danced over flecks of moonlight and winter breezes. It hummed in a lonely way; one which reflected me, and how my own chest ached and filled with flowers. It had been nearly two months since I had built invisible roads and rivers between me and amy humble demon. Though he wasn’t all that humble when he did not wish to be. As I played, I recalled a curiosity which had taken place but a week prior:

A glow had been steadily growing within his eyes as the days had passed slowly. They would often fix upon me; shimmering as red-hot coals. I remember they had been smoldering particularly bright upon that night; dancing with a certain kind of magic. The estate had long been quiet and still; hushed by the stars and silent scenes of night. Discomfort had grown to comfort within us both once again, and I knew the shift was real. I knew what I had done had affected him. I had asked for his company for the first time in a long while. I summoned him next to me to sit by the fire. I longed for touch… yet not the kind in which would send my nerves singing. My skin was lonely, it seemed… and so he had sat beside me as I watched the flames glisten.

I held a cup of warm milk and honey gingerly within my lap. I treated it as a small bird, for I feared for it breaking or spilling. I had discovered that I could not look upon that beverage quite the same since our last endeavor, and I could feel his warmth against me as if it were burning my skin.

I leaned into the heat of him.

He sat without waistcoat nor gloves, and I felt close to him as if we were close friends. Such a dynamic was strange, though everything about me was as such. I feared not for the other servants, and if they would catch us in such a state. I was tired of being afraid. They could think whatever they were keen to, I supposed. I was sure they had heard enough to wonder, and I found that I did not care one bit. I turned my nose into the crook of his neck, breathing deeply. The air was relaxed and peaceful around us, and I felt safe… for I knew he would succumb to any, and all of my orders.

My own mind was strange and confusing. I knew unto the depths of me that I still loved him… yet something deep within me felt it right to repel such strong emotions. It was that blooming field of black roses which grew inside of my frail chest. With each breath, I felt it sway and grow. Such a feeling felt as a flutter of moth’s wings… a whispering of something very dark. The feeling was not regret… yet I thought it might have been something very close to it. I breathed in his familiar scent, and snuggled closer… resisting the urge to kiss his flawless skin. I glanced up at him, and found him staring down at me with those selling eyes of his. I felt it twinge within me… and it hurt as much as I thought anything could. I could not place a finger to what it was… yet I knew it was him which had caused such an ache.

I felt despair well within me, and I let it live there… silent.

Somehow, my hand had found his… and soon I was drifting off on clouds of the whitest silk; eyelids becoming heavier, and breath becoming deeper. The cup I had been holding sat empty on a nearby table. The only satiation I had needed was the deep lull of Sebastian’s breath; singing to me as the ocean would sing similes to the beach’s tenants.

“Hmm.”

I hummed as I grew sleepier.

“Young master, I fear that it is getting far too late.”

I nodded, though I could feel the tenseness in his voice.

He accompanied me upstairs to my quarters, carrying a flickering candelabra in his pale hands.

I had always loved his hands.

My eyelids were growing heavier by the second, and I fell into bed as soon as I had hit it. 

I suppose it was habit, but Sebastian leaned over me to bring the plush duvet around me. 

The gesture made my stomach flutter, and I grasped his tie tightly before he could move away from me. Something overcame me, then. I suddenly felt him very warm… as if I were a man freezing in the depths of winter. I felt that need return for him… and I wanted to resist. I told myself to resist that gaze… those hands. I took a shuddering breath, and sighed shallowly. I did not know what had possessed me into sentimentality, but I allowed it to sweep me away.

I suppose it was habit… but I kissed him softly.

He seemed surprised, to say the least… and yet he welcomed my soft lips with a gentle kiss of his own. Though my eyes were closed, I could feel his gaze hot and heavy upon my cheeks. My helpless fingers wound themselves into his hair with a gentle and sweet caress. My lashes fluttered as my heart did, then… and I felt his eagerness swell. He depend the embrace; sliding his tongue along my plump lower lip. I wanted to whimper; to cry out and pull him close… yet something raged behind my eyelids, then; compelling me to pull away.

I pressed three careful fingers to his mouth with a gentle, yet firm pressure.

He looked at me as if I were the only thing which would ever relieve his longing… the aching which I knew he harbored. I let my fingers fall from his hair with a soft caress, and gazed unwaveringly into his intimidation. 

His eyes held every bit of me.

“My Sebastian.”

I whispered.

He had left soon after bidding me a strange, yet gentle goodnight. I knew he had not been satisfied in weeks, and yet he still had no choice but to abide by my wishes and wants… even if they were so painful and cruel.

His lips were bittersweet.

As I ran my bow along the fragile strings, my music bled into the remembrance of this. My contracted eye was pulsing and blazing with fire, and as the memory grew stronger, so did the burn. The notes crested over waves of black silk; swaying and crumbling as each tremor met the air with growing velocity. As the song crescendoed and peaked, the stinging sensation became nearly unbearable. I was determined enough to play through and finish the melody, though I did not cease with retardando… but with a violent and short ending note which blasted through the room and ended sharply.

My breath was heavy as I set the instrument hastily in its case. I ripped at the eyepatch covering my eye, grasping it with heavy hand. The shiny fabric glinted in the setting sun, and I stared at it in confusion; rubbing furiously at my eye. It was now stinging and aching as if something, or someone, were calling for it. It felt as if it yearned for something inexplicable… as if it had a will all its own. I could hear it telling me to go to him… as if through the contract, he was grasping out to me. 

I wondered if this was how it felt when I called to him.

I threw the piece of silk cloth down; discarding it without care. I turned to look past the crack in the door, wondering what sort of anomaly had brought about this. It was both exciting and terrifying. I had felt the contract’s power before, but never such as this. This was extraordinary… something indescribable and horribly painful. 

I knew I had felt it within my soul.

I crossed swiftly to the threshold, gazing down the hallway which was darker than it should have been for early evening. I knew I had asked Sebastian to leave me be for some time so that I may practice without interruption, though I couldn’t help but wonder if it was he which was willingly causing this disturbance. The shadows encasing the hall seemed thick and tangible, like sticky molasses covering the walls. The sting grew into a throb, then into a piercing ache that should never be able to be felt. I rubbed at my eye, and it watered furiously; blurring my vision. My fingers drew away damp, and a few tears escaped my eye as they fell down the pale expanse of my cheek. I sniffed, stumbling with the pain and blurriness.

I steadied myself upon the wall as I approached the blackness which was calling to me. I felt something tug at my insides, and I followed the steady pull down the long corridor. As I stepped further, the tug became stronger and the blackness became blacker. As I stepped carefully, the air seemed to hush me. I felt the need to be quiet and slow. I realized that I had been approaching Sebastian’s corridors, and I drew in a quick breath. A cold shiver ran down my spine, and my back fell against the hard wall. My knees grew weak as I wondered if he was the one summoning me upon him. 

I broke out into a cold sweat; droplets beading upon my forehead as my breath sped up to a faster pace. I inched my way along the great hall until I reached the threshold of his doorway. Darkness was seeping from under the cracks and through the lock; spreading and swirling in the most tangible form I had seen yet. I stifled a gasp as I felt the coldness of it wash over me as satin sheets would in the dead of winter.

It was the dead of winter.

He embodied winter… and all it brought about.

I could nearly feel his angst through the thick wood as it seemed to float heavily though the air. I swear I could feel his hands caressing me as the thick shadows swirled about me and crawled up my spine; spreading along my back, and winding through my hair. I shuddered as I reached out to grasp the door handle. I realized that I feared him in that moment. I could not help but wonder what kind of creature would await me behind those creaking hinges. As I looked down to study the way the light from my eye spread beams of violet light across my skin, I noticed my hands were shaking violently. I was shivering in the sudden cold, and needed warmth to fill me, now. I could still feel the burn… could still hear it calling to me… and in a sudden moment of courage, I gingerly grasped onto the cold metal door handle. Gripping it tightly, I turned it downwards, slowly. I heard it click, and pulled it open so that I pay peek through.

The room was unbearably dark; unbearably lonely feeling, and cold. A breath of cool air caressed me, and I shook it away with repellence. As I continued to peer though the haze, I could make out the rough shapes of furniture, and of a bed frame. I could hear something rustling amongst the sheets and pillows; whispering, and growling softly. Though no light permitted me to gaze upon the broken shape of my servant, I could feel that he was nestled into the mattress. I quieted my breath to listen; mind fuzzy and confused. This had not been predictable behavior on his part, though I should have known. 

I could feel his unraveling all the while.

My breath quickened and my heart began to pound out of my chest.

Suddenly, I heard him whisper,

“Ciel…“

It was broken, and muttered so softly, that I feared I had imagined the sound. A soft groan followed suit of the name, and I could feel my throat swell with a familiar feeling… though I could not quite place it.

“Ciel.”

The aching in my eye pulsed and spread into my hips, then… willing my knees to buckle. I gasped softly as I felt myself shake and fall against the cracked doorframe. I braced myself against the cool wood, eyes closing as I heard yet another, clearer whisper pierce through the dark,

“My Ciel-“

I clamped my hand over my mouth as to stifle any ungodly sounds which might have willed themselves to spill from me. My head knocked against the wallpaper, and I let myself collapse against it. I could feel a warmth spreading throughout my belly as slowly and deliberately as fire, and every sound Sebastian made seemed to echo more loudly around me.

It was only then that I could hear the lewd sounds which were escaping the room alongside his growls, and my mouth fell open in a silent gasp as I braced both hands upon the floor. A wave of intense pleasure struck me, then… and it was as if I could feel his hands upon me. I thought this all strange, yet I could not think clearly enough to concentrate on whatever issue there might have been. I was swept away in bliss as I heard him groan and touch himself. I could feel him stroking faster, and it was as if we had become one… become so intwined in mind, body, and spirit that each of us was capable of understanding each thought which ran rampant through us. 

My legs spread and my back arched against the wall, fire blazing through me as a great, burning tempest which was ready to crush me with its mighty force.

“Sebastian…”

I mumbled into the palm of my hand,

“oh, Sebastian. Ah-”

I needed to keep the separation between us… no matter how insatiable we both would become. I would not give in to him, yet. I had a goal to achieve, and I would stop at nothing to be stubborn, and to let that live above all else. 

I felt him within my bone marrow; as if he were clawing away at me. I found myself wanting to escape… to get away before I was caught, but it was as if I were trapped there. My eyes rolled to the back of my head as I was crushed in blissful agony. I felt something dark tearing away at my insides as a hunter would its prey. It was a fear of sorts; dangerous and untamed. It clawed at the light shivers and flutters which had been there before, and I grimaced in painful pleasure. That sort of hollowness grew until I could myself breathing it into my lungs. I clutched at my clothing and hair; panting heavily through my nose as I clamped my mouth shut with the reverence of my own pride.

Shut up, Ciel. Shut up and run!

My mind screamed at me to go… to take flight and to flee this place of darkness. 

But I could not move. No matter how hard I tried, and tried again… I kept sinking back into the deep waters of our heightened senses. I wanted to cry out so badly that I felt it tearing away at my throat; begging for me to let it pierce the air and run rampant throughout Sebastian’s mind. Maybe then he would try a little harder to have me. Maybe then he could show me just how much he desired me… not just my flesh and bones. 

Though I knew he wanted that, too. 

I was tired of playing games with him. Yes, the grand master of games… deeply tired of strategizing and manipulating my pawns. I had once feared this would come about. I suppose I had once cared, too. I both wanted him as a dragon seeks gold, and yet repelled him as a disgusted pony would looking at how filthy his water trough had become.

My body was out of my own control. Each nerve ending buzzed and felt as if it were glowing with the power of a thousand suns. I took shuddering breaths through pouted lips as I writhed untouched outside of his door. I would not let him know of my presence. I resisted the urge to touch myself and release my body from this prison it seemed to be trapped within. I could not move, nor think as I felt the waves of ecstasy crest and grow. I panted into both hands, now… biting into the flesh of my palms and I closed my eyes. I could hear him growling with pleasure mere feet away from me, and I readied myself for what was to come. He sped up, and the darkness grew with the feelings of fear, and hatred… longing, and something else I couldn’t quite name. I heard him grunt viciously, and not long after, I could feel him releasing.

I resisted and resisted… trying to tear myself away from the sensation. I could feel each muscle tightening as the feeling overcame me. I shook my head, trying to tell myself not to let it go; for I knew if I did, I may become transparent. It was a scary thing; feeling like I was unable to trust him. I never trusted him, yet I had with my entire being. Now, it was as if I could not predict his every move, and I felt that I had reason to be fearful of them. Tears sprung to my eyes. 

Resist.

My thoughts chanted to me.

Yet as his breath grew heavier and my limbs began to quake and tremor furiously, the idea of submission didn’t sound so awful. My eyelashes fluttered against the pale of my cheeks as I dreaded yet welcomed the onslaught of this new feeling. I sank to the floor on hands and knees; begging my weak wrists to hold me up, for Sebastian had always been there to do so before. 

Though he was right there, next to me… he seemed to far away.

Then, he climaxed... and helplessly, I came dry; biting my tongue as my eyes screwed shut tightly and my back arched as a bow ready to release its arrow. The tears which had blinded me dripped over the red flush in my cheeks as my arms gave out and I fell chest-first into the hallway. I attempted to muffle all sound… yet I knew that if I could feel him, he could surely feel me. I still hoped with every cell that he had not known I was just outside his door. I would not allow him to know that I was not brave enough to face him. He would have expected me to be, I was sure. 

This was wrong.

All of this… it was so wrong.

It was as if this unbearable pleasure mixed with my blood; cascading through every piece of me. My mind exploded with searing-hot, palpable glory… and all thought was lost as I bit hard enough at the back of my hand to draw blood. I could have sworn stars were dancing all around me; invading the night’s sweet breath as my demon took me without touch. My tears were made of ashen moonlight as they smeared across my skin and left it shining with wetness. I shook and pleaded with myself to stay conscious as I realized I was experiencing the most intense orgasm I had ever had.

And he hadn’t even touched me.

As I came down, I could hear and feel his heavy breathing and relaxed senses behind me. I swallowed a whimper as my brain began to clear and still. I was struck with astonishment… deep confusion at the events which had just conspired. I sighed, swallowing my overwhelm heavily. I felt something akin to hate, and pride, and grief, and loathing, and intense love all at once. It welled up within my chest and throat, yet I still had no explanation for this anomaly. 

I attempted to calm my stuttering breath to no avail; pushing my damp hair out of my forehead.

Oh, Sebastian… what have we done?

With still shaking hands and a racing heartbeat, I silently closed the door to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna add a note, but i have no idea what to say.
> 
> if anyone's wondering - the story will be about 20 chapters long. 
> 
> i aint givin nothin away


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'He was infinite. 
> 
> I always seemed to forget that part.'

The letter was sealed with glossy red wax. It glinted in the fresh morning sun; reflecting off the golden light beams. I turned the little envelope over in my hand, examining the parchment.

“It is from her majesty, my lord.”

Sebastian’s cool, even tone pummeled the air beside me. I was nearly too aware of his presence… trying too hard not to look him in the eyes. I knew he noticed, but he refused to address any outstanding issues these past few days; resorting to purely professional exchanges and conversations. It was unnerving, yet I welcomed the much-needed break from my own head. I let it be, so that I had not a need to care.

The paper was scrawled with the neatest of handwritings; addressed to ‘The Queen’s Watchdog, Ciel Phantomhive’. I wasn’t sure if the thought was new, but I was beginning to wonder how well that name fit me. The letter its self seemed to hold some kind of power, and even I hesitated before opening the fragile bundle of words made with ink and trees. Three pages of writing fell out onto my desk; two of which were files containing vital information on the current case. I picked up the letter first. The Queen’s unmistakable handwriting glared up at me in striking black. 

It read:

My Dearest Boy,

I trust you are well, as of late. It has been a while since I last had a case for you. Please do take this as proof of a job well done, and do not stress. You have done well in keeping my streets rid of vermin of the nastiest degree. I thank you for your hard work, and am pleased to present you with quite the vexing case, indeed. I trust that you will find the contents of the enclosed files interesting enough to pursue with gusto, as I feel this particular riddle is much to complex for anyone but a Phantomhive. This is something I wish I could have been rid of years ago, and I am ashamed to admit that this disturbing agenda has been allowed without my notice for this long.

Children have been going missing in London for decades upon decades. It seems as though each time a case has been deemed closed, yet another leak springs from the bowels of the city. These serial kidnappings have owned a prime place on mine, and yours agenda for quite some time now. I have been aiming my gun closer and closer to the culprit with every file tucked away, and I am confident now in knowing it is aimed properly. I understand this case may produce personal feelings. I pray that you will remain objective with your decisions and understanding of this complexity, and use such sentiments to fuel you.

I am now placing the gun in your hands. I trust that you will know when to fire.

Sincerely,

Queen Alexandrina Victoria 

Placing the handwritten note aside, I picked up the other two files with curiosity.

‘CLASSIFIED’

They read with bold letters at the top of each page. There were rows and rows of pictures of children whom had gone missing. They lined the front, and half of the back of each page. There were so many faces to be seen, the names of each victim seemed to be in the smallest of print. As my eyes scanned the contents, I noticed that each face and name had a date.

‘Ruby McDonald - 1864’

was the first girl on the list.

I quickly checked the last name on the second piece of paper, and surely enough, it read,

‘Charlie Paige - 1891’

“The last six are from this year.”

I mumbled, scanning the list upward. I noticed that as the years had gone along, the frequency of missing children had lessened. I started back at the top of the list. There were a total of 24 victims taken in ’64, thirteen in ’83, and so on.

As I reached the tenth victim of ’84, my heart stood still.

My breath quickened; cheeks burning red. I began to feel dizzy, and had to steady my now shaking hand upon the waxed surface of the desk. My stomach churned as I felt my peripheral vision begin to blur and darken. My focus remained stuck to the small photograph in front of me… to the smiling face of a young boy with slate grey hair.

It was a photograph of me.

It was overwhelming. As I tried to process what was in front me I felt the sudden need to run away as fast as I could… and then my hands began to shake more vigorously, and I had to put the papers down. I suppose I must’ve thrown them down, for Sebastian’s comforting hand came to rest upon my shoulder. It felt warm… too warm. I remembered the fire. I felt as if were touching me, but as my breath began to choke me, Sebastian shook my shoulder with a firm, yet gentle pressure.

Suddenly, I was back to reality. My eyes snapped up to his, and I tried to calm my laborious breathing. His hand slipped away as soon as I did, and my shoulder was left cold and bare.

“What does it say?”

I was a too afraid to speak, so I shook my head; handing him the document with my still trembling hands. I watched as his eyes immediately found the image. He frowned. He was a smart man… the photo alone was enough to alert him of the current agenda. He sighed, placing it back down atop the other two pieces of information. 

It was silent for awhile. 

I had gleaned enough information in my time to know that the same awful cult which had taken me, were also responsible for the deaths of Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive… my parents. My parents had been killed by them. They killed my parents. I became angry… calculating. It was clear that they must’ve had an ultimatum. They hadn’t wanted my father to find them.

They should have known better than to underestimate my family.

I imagined the satisfaction I would feel once I knew they were all dead; bleeding, cursing my name… cursing the child they had once held in a cage. I could see Sebastian now. My pawn, forever loyal to me, killing mercilessly just as was deserved and justified. I could nearly feel the way my chest would swell with pride! I could almost hear how quiet it would be after the deed had been done; Sebastian kneeling at my feet as he should be.

Sebastian.

I could imagine they way his eyes would surely sparkle. He would smirk devilishly… taking my hands in his. 

It would be the end, after that. He would take what rightfully belongs to him, and I would be forgotten in the years to come. The servants would be left without work, the manor would decay… the bed left made as it was that morning. 

I wondered how he would do it. 

I wondered, for the first time… if he would do it.

I looked back at him. The same cruelness must have been washing over him, as well… for as our eyes locked, I could feel his need to touch me. A cold shiver ran down my spine. I did not need to read the texts at the back of each file to know that they held the answer I had been looking for for over seven years. 

My voice seemed quiet when I spoke,

“This is it, then.”

He nodded. 

My throat felt far too dry.

I had nothing to say. The things I wished to convey were not part of any language’s vocabulary. I knew then that we had mere days of time left. I had mere days… not him.

He was infinite. 

I always seemed to forget that part.

After what seemed like an eternity, I cleared my throat and spoke hoarsely,

“Might as well do it throughly, then.”

There was no use in prolonging the time, and so I reached again for the folded parchment. It contained information on where the cult was thought to have their meetings, as well as plenty of suspect information. It was more than enough for Sebastian to go off of. After I had read all three pages several times over, I placed them back into the envelope; hiding it under stacks of paper in one of the drawers beneath me. I stood, then… taking him in. I wanted to remember the look on his face. He seemed, for the first time, torn. I could see his determination mixing into whatever twisted lust he held for me. 

“Go investigate each location mentioned. I trust you remember them clearly enough?”

He nodded.

“Good. We know we’ve hit the mark, here… Sebastian. Do not disappoint me.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I meant by that, but he seemed to understand the inflection behind my words.

“We leave early tomorrow morning.” 

I turned away from him, for I knew I could not lie to his face when I said, 

“There is no need to bargain on wasted time.”

I noticed his hesitation before he began walking towards the door. I could feel myself begin to crumble, and I begged my own heart to stay beating. I took a deep breath, and before he was out the door, I called to him,

“Sebastian.”

He turned back around, and his eyes were once again out of his control.

“Thats…”

The telltale sting of tears invaded my eyes. I could not let them fall. I could not let him see me fall apart. I squared my shoulders and spoke with the last bit of confidence I had left to bare,

“that’s an order.”

I knew it was useless to say.

He did not bow… did not dare look me in the eyes. He simply said,

“Yes, my lord.”

And left… for what could he have done?

What could I have done?

I could have kept my goddamn sentiments to myself. I could have ignored his hungry eyes… his burning flesh. I could have stopped this affair long ago; before the divide had become far too sharp to bear. But now, I knew the ebb of his breath too well. I had memorized the way his fingertips felt against every inch of my skin, and I could not forget the way his heartbeat felt so, so real against my cheek. 

I had felt the contract’s anger when I decided it could be no more.

I should have spared myself such an irreversible heartbreak. Perhaps it hadn’t been worth it, at all. Perhaps I would have been better off never knowing of the pleasure he could give to me. 

Perhaps I had done this all far too late in the game.

As his footsteps grew fainter, I could feel my resolve being washed away. The sting returned with a vengeance, and it felt as if the biggest piece of me had been ripped away and burned to ashes; unsalvageable as my heart. It hit me as the dam broke. My knees buckled; eye screaming in pain. I clutched the edge of the wooden table as my lungs expelled all the air in which they held. I knew beyond words that Sebastian could feel it, too. 

It felt as if it were breaking.

I was breaking.

Though he had been ordered to perform a certain task, and so I knew he would not come to me unless I called. I refused to call… feeling whatever heart I had left break and crumble as remnants of a marble statue in which the artist had deemed a terrible mistake. No tears would come, and yet I sobbed uncontrollably as I fell to my knees; chest heaving and voice breaking.

 

Why must it feel this way?   
I crumpled to the floor, no longer able to resist my own mind. Everything was searing… so hot and so rampant. Our connection stung, and I could feel his own heart racing. Demon’s hearts were not supposed to beat that way. My soul ached with everything and nothing all at once; an uncontrollable wave of agony which crushed me under its foam. It hurt. It hurt as nothing I had ever felt before. The pain lasted for what seemed like hours, and I knew that this was not under the regular rules of the contract. 

This was sick. 

We were sick.

I was sick. 

What we had was something to be feared. 

And I was deeply, deeply afraid.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“a goodbye for you that is loved.”
> 
> I whispered.'

Finally, the excruciating pain left me, and I was met with a dull ache. I felt empty; as if I had expelled everything good and everything evil all at once. It was a violent flurry of emotion, and now I was a hollow vessel. I was so proud… so scared, and so filled with grief and regret. 

I felt like nothing. 

Somehow, I found my way into the gardens. The wind was slight and gentle, yet it still stung my bleary and swollen eyes. I found my seat on a stone bench far into the maze’s depths. I slouched there, wondering what the whole damn point had been. I had been so blinded by anger and fear, that I had not a moment to have the same thought twice. I did not want to die, though I told myself that I would be devoured with pride and dignity… as a true Phantomhive would. Something which I had never valued before, now felt as a monument to each and every pain and pleasure I had ever received. Though this hadn’t been a wasteful bargain, I was now wondering what it would have been like to grow old… how would this manor age with time? 

Would I be forgotten easily?

I feared that I had not left much behind to be remembered by. I wondered why I cared. I had discard my eyepatch, coat, tie and shoes long ago, and was now in quite the state of undress. I wondered when Sebastian would return. 

The Begonia, Blackthorn and Bluebell all bloomed beautifully in the air; their scents wafting up to my dry and stuffy nose. I stood and picked an Anemone, fondling its soft petals with my fingers. I gazed up at the sky; at the rolling clouds and tumbling trees high above. It seemed almost peaceful… the way they swayed and bowed their branches. It was as if they were kneeling to pray before an unseen god. I thought, that if this god was truly there, how frightened should I be? Would he smite me? Perhaps he would forgive my sins… though how was I ought to know of this? I only knew of so many things. That in which I did understand, I understood quite well. I understood that something must change in your mind once you realize that in that moment in which you are staring up at the sky, it is one of the last times you will ever look at the sun again. I sighed in submission. I had not the arrogance to attempt, avoid nor fight the inevitable.

‘All is simply the way that it is.’

It would have been naive to decline a decision I had made myself. Though I knew humans were, indeed arrogant… I also knew that there comes a time when one must accept the reality of his situation. My situation, seemed to me appropriate for one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies.

Sebastian was going to kill me.

I felt a deep twinge of pain in my chest when I thought about it; as if someone had stabbed me in the gut, then twisted the knife deep inside of me.

‘Once the contract is formed, the soul must not enter past the gates of heaven.’

‘Do I look like someone who believes in heaven to you?’

I wasn’t sure if that was true any longer. What a thoughtless child I had been.

I shook my head, taking my seat upon the slate once more. My gaze feel over the velvet petals of the flower I held between my shaking fingers. I twisted it in my hands, examining each leaf. I found a tiny brown spot on one of its petals; a tainted spool of silk. I began to mindlessly pick at it, attempting to rid it of its imperfection. Then there was a ragged edge where the spot had once been, and that was far more unseemly, I decided… so I concluded that it would feel much better if the whole petal was gone. I gently pulled at it until it came loose; fluttering to the cobblestone as a feather would onto grass. Satisfied with my work, I examined the blossom once more. It was now uneven; painfully obvious that it was missing. I sighed again, trying to choose another petal to pick off to grant the flower its balance back.

Each time another petal fell, a new flaw would be discovered. It went on this way until there were only two petals left; standing not quite on each half of the bloom. I became angry with myself, and picked them both off at once without ease. 

It was going to die without ground and water, anyways.

Only the stem remained; an ugly green sprout with a small sac of yellow pollen atop its mess of a stem. I let it fall to the ground, as well. Nothing lasts forever, I suppose. Just some longer than others.

When Sebastian finally did return, he looked tired. Not tired as if he longed for rest and a warm bed, but the kind of tired which I believed only I could know. Tired in the sense of one’s soul… as if Sebastian had one. He found me in the garden at noon, and escorted me back inside. He did not comment on my discarded clothing when he found them laying across the staircase, but simply picked them up and placed them neatly in the laundry shoot. We had spoken no words since before he had gone. I could tell he saw the puffiness in my eyes and the red which was staining my cheeks. I did not allow myself to hurt over it. I could not bear any more of this.

Lunch passed without event, and I told Sebastian that if he needed me, I could be found in the library.

I knew he would not ‘need’ me.

I need him, not the other way around.

I found comfort in those old, decaying books. I loved the way they smelled, and how the dust collected upon their spines seemed to match my own. I felt my own skin as that old, yellowed paper. The ink was my hair… the contents of the text, my soul. I did not read while I was there. I simply surrounded myself in quiet; breathing in the stale air as the dusk began to approach and the light outside the window became tinted gold and red and blue. I realized I had let too much time pass, yet I still did not allow regret to boil within me.

After dinner, I contemplated letting him wash me one more time. Yet I knew I was far too old for that, and the last thing I wanted was to cause a scene. I dismissed him after he accompanied me to my chambers. This routine had become to awkward… so out of place. I knew this illusionary wall I was building between us was bound to break apart, yet I dare not let it too just yet. 

I bathed and dressed myself, as usual.

After blowing out the lights and crawling into bed, I pulled the covers over my shivering body. The dull ache in my eye seemed to turn into a pulsing heat, and I rubbed at it in an attempt to stave away any more pain. I was tired of pain, but most of all… I was simply tired. I was on the edge of giving up, and falling. Either way I was able to run, I knew I would end up in the same, dark forest; stumbling… lost. The manor felt too alone… too quiet. I listened intently to hear Sebastian cleaning or cooking something downstairs, yet I heard not a sound from anything. The night’s cool slumber was strange. I could not sleep, for it played over again and again in my mind; the killing… the screams. Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel the immaculate burn… I could hear them all scrambling for mercy. 

I fell asleep sometimes during these illusions, and I dreamt vividly.

There was darkness all around me. I could not hear, nor see anything but his eyes as they bore into me. The feeling of floating overcame me, and I was trapped. I felt his hands upon my waist; guiding me towards him with a whirring dizziness. Suddenly, I was brashly pulled up against his chest, and I was struck with a diverging chorus of warmth and coldness; a firm hand up against the dip in my back. His other hand traces the sides of my delicate face; all the while pushing strands of my hair away from my eyes. I couldn't move as he reached for my eyepatch, and pulled at the knot behind my head. It slid away into the night; forgotten.

I looked up at him, and his expression was one of pure, illicit insanity. He gazed hungrily at me; calculating. His eyes grew slitted and fierce with lust, and he firmly held onto the back of my head… pulling me closer until our lips were nearly pressed against the other’s gasp.

“Breathe.”

He commanded, and I could not find myself able to disobey. I let the sulfur-filled air invade my lungs, and suddenly, his mouth was on mine. He sucked the air right from me, leaving me breathless. I clutched onto his arms; grasping onto him as my eyes rolled back in their sockets, and my knees buckled beneath me. I had no time to think, no time to scratch at his skin. As he pulled away, I could see a light blooming between our lips. It was made of gossamer silk; soft, and gentle… a brilliant, shimmering blue. 

It was my soul, and I could feel it leaving me.

I was afraid.

I was afraid, and I tried to gasp, yet I could not breathe… could not speak. I felt myself slipping away… away from the darkness in which I was shrouded in. I began to feel at one with him, and in him. It was to become the greatest infinity I had ever known, and I welcomed his strange embrace. My chest heaved under the weight of this sorrow, and as the energy drained from me, I finally did not care. 

Let him take it, I thought. 

Every piece of it is his to own.

I awoke, then… sticky with sweat and heaving with my labored breath. I sat up straight, immediately… scanning the walls for any unusual or menacing shadows. The ache in my eye had remained constant, and I blinked a few times to banish the sleep far away from me. I took up a match, re-lighting the flame upon the candle I had extinguished hours before. There was nary a light in the room without it, save for the soft glow of moonlight outside my window, and I could feel myself begin to calm under the soft, golden glow. I felt the darkness as a tangible thing around me, still… and I wanted not to be alone, now… I craved for the warmth of skin pressed against my back; fingers threading themselves through my hair. I wanted Sebastian. One last time, I wanted to feel him next to me. I cared not of what would conspire, I simply needed comfort.

What else did I have left to loose?

Nothing.

I stood, taking the candlestick in my steady hand. My bare feet padded along the rug, and over to the wooden door. I pulled it open slowly, as if I were afraid of waking the spirits of lives long past. I would never be joining them, wherever they may be. I was quiet as I newborn mouse when I finally reached Sebastian’s quarters. If I hadn’t heard him about downstairs, he must be resting here. He had told me numerous times demons had no need for sleep nor rest… so I found this anomaly odd, to say the least. Though, if he were writhing as a tortured beast atop his bedsheets as he had before, I surely would have felt it. I paused, hand resting upon the brass of the handle.

I let out a shuddering breath.

Gingerly turning the doorknob, I held my breath tightly within my fluttering lungs. When no event ensued, I pushed further and began to open it. There was no creak on the hinges; no residing curse there to give me fright, so I continued, slowly. I paused when it was halfway there, letting my clammy fingers slide from the metal as I let the air escape from me.

“Sebastian…”

There was answer to be heard.

“Sebastian.

I called a bit louder. There was no reply, so I entered with caution. The room was unbearably cold, and I quickly crossed the freezing wood of the floor to reach him. I placed my candle upon the nightstand, leaning over the silent figure before me. He lay there… chest slowly moving, and eyes closed softly. He was nestled under the blankets provided; arms splayed out upon his pillow. I had never seen this creature so vulnerable in my life. I had the slight inclination to just stand there, watching him until morning… yet I couldn’t bring myself to be left in the cold, so I sat upon the mattress beside him.

“Sebastian.”

I said again, placing a small hand upon his shoulder. He stirred, then; eyes fluttering open. He was a light sleeper, I supposed.

“Young master?”

He said blearily… squinting at me through the golden light. I nodded,

“Were you asleep?”

He sat up, propping himself against the wooden bed frame. He took a moment to reply, but it came in a whispered voice,

“I suppose I was.”

Even he seemed to be surprised by this, yet I chose to pay it no mind to it. This was my last night, and there was no use in groveling over things which had no significance.

I trusted him to know everything. 

I shook my head,

“No matter, then.”

I looked away, clutching at the bedsheets beside me. They seemed to be made of a lifeline, and I clung to them as to not spill myself over him as a wave of permanent emotion.

“Do you need something, my lord? I apologize for any inconvenience.”

“No, no… it isn’t that.”

I sighed. I had not a clue on how to go about explaining how every time he touched me, it felt as sparks across my skin. How was I to tell him of a world which he could never understand… a word which consisted only of him? There was no way, in heaven nor in hell, that I could ever begin to implore this great fortress of calamity. He was so sudden, so inconceivable… I dare say I would have never been able to imagine this creature without laying my eyes upon him first. He was everything and nothing, and I felt it all at once. It was far too much to bear, but my earnest mind begged me to listen.

I shifted closer to him, courage growing as I turned myself to finally face him,

“I-“

I desperately scrambled for words, and when I found them, they slipped out,

“I needed you.”

“I see.”

He understood.

He reached out to me, taking my hand in his… pulling me towards him to sit beside him, facing him. One of my hands found its way into his hair; carding through those gorgeous locks. It seemed as though gravity its self were pulling us closer, and I couldn't resist. The facade crumbled. Right then, right there… it crumbled into thousands of shining, broken pieces. I closed my eyes, feeling myself letting go… finally letting go. 

It was time to let him go. 

We were close, and our breath met; scalding through the frigid air around us.

“A kiss for you that is sorrowful,”

I murmured… and then, his lips were upon mine for the first time in what felt like an infinity. I leaned into him; chest exploding and stomach fluttering. I swelled with intense energy, and I could feel it accumulating within my eye; burning through every vein. I gasped as his kisses quickly grew heated, and I met his frenzy with equal force. My mind left me… floating somewhere else where I felt I had no worries. He licked at my lips and tongue, and I allowed him to explore my mouth as our tongues danced without fear. The exchange felt so sure… so fluid.

When I pulled away, I was scarcely breathing. I quickly tore the covers off of him, as I knew my heat would be sufficient enough, and sat myself into his lap; arms snaking around his neck as I felt his own warmth encasing me. I paused mere inches away; eyes locking onto his… hands carding through the silk of his hair. His hands rubbed up and down my back; tracing invisible paintings in which we would never finish.

“a goodbye for you that is loved.”

I whispered.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'After this, my soul would never soar beyond the hills, as most were bound to do; jumping onto each precipice of mountain… shimmering, and singing brightly onto the next.'

Our lips met again with crushing intensity; tongues again licking into mouths and legs tightening around his waist. His hands wandered to my rump, and I whimpered. It was a frenzy; an overwhelming need neither of us had felt in a long while. I could not breathe… could not see. I was lost in him as he was lost in me, and I pushed myself as close to him as I could manage without suffocation. The soft caress of my hands in his hair soon turned to biting tugs as he leaned down to kiss the alabaster silk of my neck. I sighed, eyes closed and bottom lip secured between my teeth.

My hands slid over the white of his shirt, and I tugged at the buttons. His hands didn't seem to want to leave my thighs, and so I managed it myself; discarding the unwanted cloth over the side of the bed. I immediately began to run my hands over his bare chest. His mouth moved to my ear, and I could hear his breath louder than my beating heart as he nipped at the sensitive skin. My hands came around him again, caressing his neck and shoulders. My skin bloomed with sensitivity to him, and I moaned recklessly when his hands slid up my thighs and under the muslin of my nightshirt to run rampant over my hips and stomach. 

I grabbed at his face again, kissing him fiercely and with the intent to leave us both shaking. I wanted to make him drown in pleasure as I ran my hands down his chest and to his stomach, and I gleaned a hint of satisfaction when his grip around my waist tightened. I pulled away to run my tongue along his collarbone; nipping at his throat before descending lower to his hips. I pulled at his black slacks, biting at the waist. HIs eyes slid over me… catching my own in a lucrative stare. He chuckled before gently pushing me away to rid of them himself. He was left naked before me, and I swallowed a moan at the sight of his engorged cock. 

I wondered how this would feel.

I leaned over him, grasping it in my hands. I permitted him a few strokes before leaning low; back arched, and ass held high for him to see. It was a submissive position to be in, and I knew this… but I had decided long ago that he was the most important thing I had ever owned, or had been owned by. I hadn't been owned by many things… but if it was he who were to take such a power, I would permit it with grace. 

I licked my lips before letting myself taste him. I gave the head a little kiss before nudging my mouth over it, sucking as he had taught me. My eyes fell closed as I moaned over him, my own cock beginning to become a painful burden. I whined, taking more of him into my mouth until I could feel him all the way at the back of my throat; burning and twitching excitedly. With one hand holding me up, and one hand pumping him, I began to suck vigorously, and without inhibitions. He was the most delicious sin I had ever come to taste, and I was taken aback at just how much I loved the feeling of his thick cock in my mouth. His hand came into my hair; teasing me with gentle fingers. Whimpering, I bobbed my head… licking at the flesh which tasted sweet only because it was him, and no one else.

I pleasured him with everything I had, for he was all that I had. My own hips began to rock into the air, and I decided that I simply did not want to think anymore.

“Mmm… that’s it. Good boy.”

He murmured, egging me on… encouraging me to taste him. I fell onto my elbow as I reached up to grasp his sac within a trembling hand. He growled lowly, and I felt that sound reverberate into my core.

“Hmm-“

I moaned around him, beginning to stroke him faster.

I knew he could feel my debauchery as it plagued the frigid air of night. He reveled in it as a pig would in mud. This was grotesque and indecent in more ways than either of us could count, and yet every suck… every pull on that red, inflamed cock felt so good, and so much like the universe had conspired in just the right ways for us to have met and become bound eternally. I knew there would be visible bruises upon me by tomorrow, yet I reminded myself not to worry… for soon enough, I would be but a distant memory; yet another decade which had gone by in the blink of that demon’s eye. 

Just another meal,

I thought.

Just another meal.

Soon enough, he gently grasped my cheek in his hand, pulling me off of his dripping erection. As my eyes finally opened, I gazed up into his blazing redness. He looked a right mess; hair askew and mouth dropped open slightly. I became breathless at the sight of him as he pulled me up once more. I felt myself throb as he held me tighter than an anchor could ever hold its vessel and mariners by rope. He was so hot… so brutal. It hurt in the best way, and I ground down onto his now slick member. Excruciating pleasure wracked my spine with the feeling such craved stimulation. My head fell back, and I heard his groan of approval as his hands found my hips and stayed there. My fingers again took refuge in his shining locks, and I pulled it in fistfuls as I began to move my hips in a steady rhythm. His rock hard member slipped over my begging entrance, and I leaned up to pant over his mouth… then into his ear. I moaned breathlessly into it, tugging harder, and he gasped; nails digging into the plumpness of my slender hips.

“Take me…”

I begged,

“one last time.”

I sounded pathetic in my own ears, yet I had lost all care for anything but him. He did not reply, rather lifted me off of him, laying me on my back, and kissing me... licking along my neck and chest as he reached into his nightstand. He dripped oil over his fingers before discarding the vial and situating himself over me. I felt one digit enter me, and I squirmed beneath him. His hot mouth descended over my stomach... fluttering over my inner thigh, and he bit me there.

“Mmm- yes…”

I hissed,

“Take no mercy.”

I spoke of now, and of later. He perceived me well, and I knew we were now approaching a great precipice. I was dangling over the edge by the toe of my shoe; grasping for his hand as he held onto but the tips of my fingers. He did not permit me to fall just yet… though I knew that he would. When I was bound to lay boneless in a heap at his feet he would call me his master, feigning innocence with the sly flick of his tongue. 

“I am yours.”

My soul was his.

He worked me so well… his finger sliding in and out of me with dangerous precision. I knew he was avoiding that spot within me which I craved for him to touch, and I did not protest it… for I trusted his every move with the life of me. I suppose I had to… for he held it within his palm as if it were a baby bird too fragile to crush. I cried out as I was lost upon those seas in which he commanded. It came unto a point wherein I could not tell where he ended, and I began. Soon, all I knew was that there were three fingers inside of me, and I was lost in the heat of him as he came up to kiss me so deeply that I forgot to breathe. I clutched at his bare back, and he hissed as I broke the flawless skin. I canted my hips up to meet him; grinding down on each thrust as he pushed palpable pleasure into my core.

“Hot… hot- it’s t-too hot.”

I whispered, drawing one hand to the buttons of my nightshirt. He gently pushed it away, unbuttoning it one-handedly with ease. He somehow got the garment off of me… how, I could not say, for he was so unrelenting. He pulled his fingers from me, then… grasping the backs of my thighs and pushing my knees up to my chest. I felt so exposed… so clearly at his mercy. I surrendered, letting each nerve inside my body sing as he bent low to give my begging entrance a heavy lick.

“Hmmm-“

His tongue prodded at me; teasing me with kisses for a few moments until he finally pushed his tongue inside.

“ahh!”

I tried to move… to grind down on him, but his strength held me there through the unbearable waves of bliss as he licked the most intimate parts of me.

“Sebastian, I’m gonna- oh, god… please! I can’t hold it!”

I was lost and seeing stars. He licked up to my taint, speaking in a rough whisper,

“Let it out, Ciel… it’s alright.”

He began to stroke me as he spoke right into my ear, squeezing me. I could feel my climax approaching as an uncontrollable convulsion, and I gripped onto his hair as I was unraveled.

“Ahhh! Fuck, Sebastian! Ah- hah… mmm. Oh, fuck!”

My voice rose in pitch as I arched off the bed, clinging to his hair as he rose to kiss my neck and stroke me through it. I came over his hand and stomach, finally biting roughly at his shoulder to silence my screams. 

“Ah… there you are.”

He breathed into my ear as tears sprung to my eyes. I felt as if I were floating… lost. The only thing which grounded me to Earth was the feeling of his hands and lips… touching me with such skill and such care.

He didn’t care to stop his ministrations, and I immediately hardened again. I was completely at his mercy… completely bound to and by him, and I loved every horrible bit of it.

“Come back to me, now.”

He whispered as he pumped me back to full hardness,

“I’m not finished with you yet.”

I felt my breath thicken in my throat, and I grasped tightly to his shoulders, leaving even more red marks upon his glistening skin. He worked me until I was yet again a panting mess beneath him. It all came so fast to me, and I had yet to catch my breath… to feel the way the candlelight flickered across our skin, and how the whole world seemed to be so silent, as if it were listening; waiting for my final breath to besiege me.

I trembled as a lost pup when he grabbed me so roughly that I was sure there would be pink bruises across my waist. I was lifted into his lap as he lay down, and my legs hooked tightly around his hips. He kept his affirming grip upon my waist, and I let my head fall back as my back arched delicately and decadently. It seemed to wrought this most wondrous beast to his end, and I knew there would be no more soft caresses, nor tender lips upon my own shuddering breath. I could feel his nails turn to claws against me before they shrunk and disappeared back into his fingertips. He growled, yet it sounded so real… so humane. Compared to his usual, unearthly voice, this felt raw and tangible… like a horrible, twisted birdsong. I let my hand slide up his chest to cup his face tenderly even as he reached up with those powerful hands, grasping my flesh with just enough force to threaten pain. I shivered at the cool night air hitting my skin. Goosebumps rose upon me, and he squeezed at my arms in his twisted way of comfort.

His hardened cock rubbed up against me again, and I could feel it as if it were begging to fill me. His hands slid to my hips, coaxing me to let him in, and I obliged; sliding myself over him before lifting my self up onto my knees as I grasped his leaking member. I could feel how hot the tip was, and I teased myself with it; letting it slide in before popping it back out again. I bit my lip, one hand clutching his chest as the other worked its way around him. I let it slide in once more, this time beginning to lower myself onto that thick dick which was slick with oil. I closed my eyes, gasping through a kiss-swollen mouth as I felt him slide into me, inch by inch.

Once I could feel the base of him against me, I collapsed onto his chest. His gentle yet impatient hands came up to firmly grasp my hips, and he gave me a short, hard thrust. 

“Ahhm-“

My back arched me off of his chest, and my hips twisted in just the right way, and I felt him reach that little switch inside of me which made me melt and call out for him until my voice was raw and hoarse with plasure.

“ahhh! There! R-right there… Sebastian.”

He growled lowly in response, thrusting up again as I ground myself onto him. It felt so good… too good. Everywhere he touched me fell like the flames of hell themselves were licking me; purging themselves into the thickening air. He thrust again and again, and finally, I began to bounce. We started up a steady and hard rhythm. Looking into his eyes, I could see every sadness the world had yet to offer. They seemed be pleading with me to forgive him for being such a monster, and I did. No matter how many times I would tell myself that I was wrong for loving him, I could not deny my own heart’s yearnings. I clutched at his chest and tightened my thighs around his waist. I hoped this somehow would ground us both from simply floating away, which seemed as reasonable a danger in that moment as anything.

I could feel each breath, each thrust, and each heavy hand upon my hips as the pleasure he gave me demanded my attention. Though he was simply holding me, the feeling inside of me was so violent, and so primal that I felt it almost necessary to attempt escape. This thought did nothing but to arouse me further, and I pushed myself onto him with an intensity I had not known I harbored. Every thrust, every stroke of that thick cock made my core swell with heat. Inside of me, he was pulsing. I felt his hands slide up my slender frame to grasp at my shoulders, and before I could register that firm warmth upon my skin, I was on my back and he was hovering above me yet again, sliding himself back within my warm depths.

“Ah, fuck!”

I whined into the small space between us.

He started a pace which was much faster, and much harder than before. He gave me everything he had, and my voice could not hold its self down any longer. I cried out endlessly as he pushed himself in and out with such skill… such a knowledge of what could make me scream. 

“Aahhh! Ahh, ah- hhhn… Sebastian! Sebastian! Seba- ahhh!”

I couldn’t feel anything but him… anything but his hands sliding up against my thighs, his tongue drawing circles under my ear, his breath panting, and playing in circles against my neck, and his agile hips thrusting against mine as he fucked me senseless. He was my world, my light, my darkness, and the love I never knew I wanted. Yet loathed with every fibre of my being. He encompassed perfection, horror, and everything in between. He was my moon, my sun, and each and every star I would ever have the privilege to cast my lazy gaze upon.

He was too good… too much.

He pounded ruthlessly into me. He was far past teasing, and I could feel every rage and every sorrow, each in their own intensity as he filled me with them. I could feel his joy, and his regrets. I could feel everything that made up the haunting perfection that was Sebastian Michaelis… and I became lost within the waves of his tide until I couldn’t tell who’s pleasure I could feel more of. It was as if we were becoming one in both mind and body. The heat within my core grew, and I know he could sense this, for he gripped my hips tightly so that I could not cant back to him. 

He fucked me harder… faster. 

“Aahhhh!”

I screamed, throwing my head back against the sheets as I clutched at his hair, pulling it roughly. He grunted, and I wound my legs tighter around him as I was left helpless. I submit to him… letting my eyes stay closed, and drowned in the pleasure. My back arched high off the bed, and he leaned down again to suck on my neck and shoulders. I moaned loudly in between gasps and whimpers. My body was completely under his control, and his alone. My breath caught in my throat as I felt the coil within me tighten until I knew it was ready to release.

My hands slid down to grip with blunt nails at his shoulders, and my eyes opened to peer, lidded… straight into his. I could feel my own member rubbing against his abdomen, and I pleaded for him to let me come,

“I-I’m- haa- gonna-“

“Shh…”

he hushed me,

“just give in.”

I knew he had meant more than just my climax, yet I had not the mind to ponder such things as I felt my second orgasm hit me with the most intense pleasure I had yet to have felt before. I fell into a million pieces under him. I had started to wonder whether or not I truly minded being devoured by this beast… yet I knew I somehow didl. I pushed everything but the thought of him to the deepest depths my mind would allow as such pleasure crashed over me… commanding me to listen. It was far more intense than that night in the hallway, when I had not even been touched. It swept me away, and my vision blurred before blackening completely. I screamed loud enough for him to silence me with an intense kiss which I could not return. My back arched higher, and my hands clutched tighter as my legs shook and trembled. I convulsed under him, throwing my head back to gasp in a breath.

I spilled over his stomach and chest, smearing my release over his skin… yet he did not seem to mind. He only thrusted harder until he himself released just as my legs fell from around him and my shaking hands found their way back to his hair. My eyes stayed closed as I felt him move to bite at my neck and shoulder, and I whimpered helplessly. He stilled deep inside, and I could feel his warmth fill me. I shuddered, carding my fingers calmingly through his hair as he nearly collapsed over me. His hands came around my waist and behind the nape of my neck to hold me. I kept one hand wound inside his ebony locks, and let the other slide around his shoulders to pull him closer against me. He stayed buried within me a little while longer, before pulling himself from me. I whimpered as he did so, nuzzling my cheek against his.

It was silent for awhile before I spoke,

“Mmm… Sebastian?”

I asked as he slid to one side of me, pulling me close to him… breathing me in.

“Yes, Ciel?”

Goosebumps rose upon my skin as he said my name. Everything was so wonderfully wrong. Everything was so horribly right.

“I…“

I sighed. My eyes avoided the stare of his own, and I buried my head into his shoulder.

“I will stay here, tonight.”

His arms came tighter around me.

“I don’t have much of a mind to return to my own bed.”

He chuckled slightly, breathing deeply into my hair,

“Of course, little one.”

There was a hint of sadness within that voice… a little droplet of fear and regret that hung onto his breath. It spoke of the reluctance he knew we both kept hidden as he pulled me closer to him. I breathed him in as if it were to save my life… as if the smell of him was the air in which I needed to breathe. I let him hold me tightly there… tighter than ever before. Though I knew he was hungry, I let myself believe that simply me, in my entirety was enough. I wondered if they were the same to him; me and my soul. I supposed they were the same to me, too. Reality was a merciless enemy. Now was to be our last night within each other’s confounding grasp. After this, my soul would never soar beyond the hills, as most were bound to do; jumping onto each precipice of mountain… shimmering, and singing brightly onto the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so, this story nears its end.
> 
> two or three more chapters are to be expected, if everything goes according to plan.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I understood that fantasies had never been real enough to be beautiful.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready

I awoke that morning entwined within his arms. This was a new occurrence for the both of us, yet it was not unwelcome. The morning light filtered into the window through the trees. They were teeming with colorful morning birds, singing soft melodies to the breeze’s rainy whisper. I sighed, blinking away the sleep from my eyes. My throat felt dry, and I swallowed hard as I turned around to face a sleeping Sebastian. A twinge of longing pierced my heart, then. Looking at him as he seemed so utterly defenseless let me grasp a tiny glimpse of something I had never seen before. I realized that once I was gone, I would be missing this change within him. Perhaps I had urged him to understand gentleness. I knew this must be untrue, considering where he had come from; that insatiable darkness and pain. It had been a selfish thought, but it had been a genuine one.

His hair fell endearingly over his eyes, and I reached up to softly brush it away. His eyelids fluttered, and my hand drew back slightly. I felt as if I were bound to secrecy… as if he was never allowed to know just how tenderly my fingers yearned and begged steadily to caress him. It was almost as if I feared waking the beast. I feared that once he awoke, his arms would slide from around my waist, and he would feign modesty, begging me to leave him whilst he could dawn that stiff, scratchy coat. I wanted him to stay like this. I wanted him to let me live here… in his arms, always.

He looked so lovely when he was sleeping.

“I love you.”

I whispered.

I did not care if my voice awoke him, nor if he had heard me.

I sunk into the warmth of his chest, drawing a hand up to stroke along the little tufts of hair at the back of his neck. Every detail of his being felt so human… felt so real. I listened for a heart beat, and for a moment I thought I heard one… but then, I felt him stir. I drew my head away as his eyes fluttered into wakefulness. He peered at me for a moment, as if he were trying to decipher something impossible. I assumed I was the puzzle he sought to solve, and I gazed back with unwavering intensity. 

There were no words either one of us could speak. Everything that came to my mind felt nonsensical and unnecessary. Instead, I brought amy hand back to up to stroke over the perfect softness of his skin. His hands came tighter around me, and I stifled the hitch in my breath. His fingers traced up my spine, and the air grew thick and charged between and around us as I felt my stomach churn again with that nauseating heat, and I desperately begged my mind to repel his torment.

He did not, instead kissing me so tenderly that for a few moments I did not realize that his lips were upon mine, at all. I knew that only he could permit me to fall to pieces… and I tried desperately to cling to a conscious and thinking mind…. yet my eyes fluttered closed in the warming gaze of the morning sun, and I pulled him to me gently. The kiss was featherlight and warm, caressing me into a soft, hazy daze. So tenderly he held me… so lovingly his lips were as they pushed against me. I felt a shiver roll its lazy way up my spine, and I drew a leg up to hook around his waist. He caressed my thigh, sliding his warm hand up the softness of my skin. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss with ease. I obliged, tangling my fingers within his hair.

Neither one of us were inclined to face the cold hardwood of his bedroom floor, and yet not a sound was uttered between our bitten lips as I drew away from him breathlessly. I felt our connection break, and I with it. I opened my eyes again in an attempt to commune what he knew we both were thinking.

No… no more.

He nodded slightly, pecking my jaw lightly as he sat up to roll the covers away from our sore bodies. I felt his hand linger just a moment longer upon my naked back before he shooed me away, and I left to change.

As I reached the threshold of my quarters, I sunk into the way my knees buckled slightly when I walked. It was his hands that had left me this way. I was unsteady, and my legs refused to work strongly and surely. I could still feel him as if he were buried deep inside me, begot from how roughly he had fucked the breath from my lungs. I sighed heavily, pushing open the door and stepping inside. It swung closed behind me with a silent finality.

“God…”

I whispered,

“I cannot regret the choices I’ve made.”

It was an attempt to reassure my senses as much as it was a timeless prayer. 

I dressed quickly, letting my mind wander. The suit I chose was simple, yet elegant. It was something that I hoped was easy enough to move in as it was comfortable. The delicate lace acted only as simple ornaments for the collar and breast pockets, and the light grey color of the fabric aided its self nicely to yearning to blend in with the sky. After I checked myself from head to toe in the mirror, I sunk down onto the mattress of the bed. I sat there for a moment, contemplating the reason in which my head was beginning to spin. Perhaps I was simply hungry? I knew that it was because my own mind did not want to confront emotion. My gaze fell onto the silhouette of the tree outside my window. It bent and swayed gently in the wind, caressing the clear glass with its tender willow leaves. As I watched, I could feel my heart beating steady in my chest. It wasn’t racing, yet it wasn’t standing still. It beat with confidence and enough pride to let me hear it within my eardrums. My eyelids fluttered closed briefly, for I wanted to hear it with my full attention for what I knew to be the last time.

When I stepped out into the hallway, my foot encountered something that had not been there before. Curious, I bent down to pick up an unsealed envelope. My heart seemed to leap up into my throat, for I knew Sebastian must have left it there, silent as a prowling cat. I turned the thing over in my grasp, admiring the front. Scrawled in neat, yet graceful script was,

To my Ciel

My hands began to tremble, and I felt my chest constrict and tighten at the way the ink still seemed to be fresh; as if it would smear at the slightest touch. My fingers fondled clumsily with the maneuver of opening the envelope, and my heart began to flutter in overwhelm. Inside lay a neatly folded piece of parchment. A small letter was written in the beautiful, loopy handwriting of that impeccable butler. It said, simply, and with no other remark nor explanation,

I have no need for a world without you in it.

Your obedient servant,  
Sebastian Michaelis 

My own words stared back at me from the blinding white parchment. He had remembered my speech, and had clung to it. Now, he was willing to give them back to me as I had been so willing to give everything I had to him. I knew unto my soul that he had meant every precise mark of his pen, for I knew how trying it must have been for him to bear emotion without the flick of his tongue, nor the glare in his eyes. 

The black ink was the same obsidian as his hair, I noticed. Again, I found myself wondering why every little detail around my wavering gaze seemed to corral back to him. I concluded that it must be because I knew that though the last goodbye is always the hardest to say, having memories which were bittersweet and broken must be better than having none at all.

Perhaps all memories are meant to be recalled with such bittersweetness.

My hands shook at this confession. I remembered how he had called me a slave of passion the first time I had acknowledged the splitting ends of my own heart. He had broken it and caused it to swell many times its weight in tears and passion, and yet here was the proof of his own illicit corruption. He would never say these words aloud, and yet they were deafening. I wondered if this would equate to his own admission of love after nearly a year of suffering in silence in his lap, in his arms… in his bed. He had exceeded what I believed to be his capacity for human emotion many times before, yet now I felt my head splitting with the climax of my confusion over him.

He had been human once.

This detail was not one in which I could easily forget. I knew that in a time deeply buried by the past, he had known what love had been. He must have some recollection of its pain… of its powerful grasp. Those who have felt it truly shall never be permitted to forget, no matter how many times they have been dragged across the flames of hell its self. Such passion did not seem different from that torture, to me. Perhaps it was because I had found my heart within a demon’s grip. The thrill Sebastian must have felt once he had given in, and become something so immaculate must hold an inkling of resemblance to how it felt to submit to him… like the world was melting away before your very eyes.

I understood that fantasies had never been real enough to be beautiful. 

Though I was but a human, at least I had been able to grasp my own suffering by the hair and drag it along behind me, never looking back. Some part of me feared that this was not all too different from how Sebastian saw me. His note had left me boneless; with a heart left more damaged than it had been before… for I knew that after today my eyes would never look upon his again, and his would never see such a wandering blue. 

I realized, that this must have meant that I had been special to him in some way

Perhaps he did not love me… but I would seize what I was able obtain. If my soul was exquisite enough to make him miss my flesh, my breath… and the way my voice stuck to the air, I would grasp that little thorn of hope and bury it within my palm, never letting go until it sunk into the earth and died with me. 

He did not love me… but through him, I was permitted infinity.

I felt my eyes become hot and wet with fat, salty tears. I attempted to blink them away, placing the note back into its envelope, folding it neatly, and tucking it gently away into my breast pocket. I wanted it with me, today. I wanted to feel its light weight against my lungs as I breathed my final breath. It was a morbid reminder that my memories were real… that this nothingness had not been braved for nothingness.

I pressed my hand onto the little folded note, breathing deeply. The window at the end of the hall shed golden light into the stale, morning air. I saw dust particles dance in and out of the highlights, swirling… echoing the weak breezes which they encountered from the window’s open pane. My eyes rolled up to the source of the light, and I looked upon it as if I were never to see it again. It was bright and blinding as it spread its warmth through the willow tree. The leaves bathed in its hue, basking in silence as a lizard would upon the sands of a dessert. Everything seemed to be so connected, and yet I felt so apart from it all… as if I were floating in a bubble wherein only I resided. This was an isolation caused by myself, no doubt… caused by my family’s heritage. I could feel that separated light bounce between my pupils as it reigned down, and I noticed things about it that I felt I hadn’t quite before. I noticed just how clear, and pure it was.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t felt that heat upon my skin, before. I had noticed such warmth when there was some to offer me. Yet this was different. This star was a living thing. It burned rampantly, and was so close… yet so far away from anything. I thought, for a moment, that perhaps I wasn’t so disconnected from the world. 

But then the sun moved behind a cloud again, and I felt only the cool air of spring against my face and hands.

No one had readied a carriage, per my own request. I knew Sebastian could take me himself, and what would it matter, after all? I was meeting my own death… a death I had fallen in love with quite some time ago, and I was unwilling to let it slip away. My eyes set with determination as I made my way down the wooden stairs for what seemed to be the last time. I found myself memorizing things I had never once seen before; the pattern on the wallpaper, the way the color around the torches seemed to be faded as the ink bled away… the dust which had settled upon the railings.

I allowed my heart to continue to break as I silently said farewell to the manor, and all which inhabited it. If it was decadence which gave my soul its flavor atop of whatever pureness there was left, I would allow Sebastian to enjoy what he deserved. 

I had been a liar.

I had been a liar because truthfully, I was not proud. I was disgusted by everything which consumed me, and I was only able to allow myself peace by knowing that such awareness was bound to be important. I was arrogant. I was arrogant, and I was a liar.

As I reached the bottom of the stairwell, I looked up to see Sebastian waiting for me mere paces away. I discarded any and all thoughts of speaking truths to him. If I had not been honest speaking about my own soul, he was bound to know every truth that had remained unspoken. I allowed myself luxury in the fantasy that he would always crave the touch of my skin, or the taste of my lips. I knew it was my soul he craved, and yet I took comfort again in the thought that they were not so different. Even he, himself had said that much, and so I approached him with a confidence I feared was soon to break.

He was silent as he led me through the doorway. I felt as if my goodbye had been deemed final as my shoes hit that cobblestone courtyard. I could feel the rush of air as the doors closed behind me, yet I could not bear to look back.

“What did you tell the servants?”

I asked quietly, pausing a moment to take a long look at the gardens before me. I hoped he would not think me a fool for doing so. I had a higher caliber to uphold as his master… though I suppose that such a title had been arbitrary.

“Not a thing.”

I froze.

“Do you think that truly wise, Sebastian?”

I asked in a darker tone.

“My thought is that it will not matter much, as neither of us will be returning.”

He was right. They would be permitted to think as they wished, for I was sure that Sebastian would return to whatever hellish landscape he had come from after this, searching recklessly again and again for a soul to satiate his hunger. I knew that he would never find a soul to compare to me, for he had been in my bed, and I had been in his. Such an entanglement would never be recreated as long, and as hard as he tried to search vainly. 

I knew this with unwavering certainty, for I knew he would try.

“I see.”

I found it harder to breathe as we again began walking into the thick greenery of the forest. Though hiding the truth that we were planning to travel on foot was unnecessary, we still took care in masking ourselves from the main road. Once we were well hidden, I turned to him with expectancy. He nodded, and I approached him again, sliding an arm around his shoulders. He swept me into his arms with ease, hooking one arm under my chest, and the other behind my knees. This way of travel was melancholy; usually reserved for occasions in which it was necessary to move swiftly away from danger. It was curious… for I was in no rush, and it was the danger in which we were traveling towards. I knew it was the only excusable way of transport now, though… for no one could have been permitted to follow us should someone see. I used this as an opportunity to rest my weary head upon his chest once more, listening for a heartbeat that I knew was not there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok now really get ready


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Break it.”
> 
> It was a means to an end.
> 
> “Break it, and kill everyone inside. If there are children, make sure they aren’t hurt… not a scratch on them. Do you understand?”'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short but important chapter

He held me tightly to him, jumping overtop buildings and caressing the air gently enough that it barely stirred. I felt strangely at peace with the world, then. I had time to ponder things in which I had been too timid and reluctant to think upon before. I realized that mine wasn’t going to be the only death today. When I would die, so would the butler Sebastian.  Just as he had given me life anew, I had permitted him to exist.  After I was gone, the biggest part of him I had ever known would be gone. He was entirely someone else… and he was about to loose the one name in which I felt familiar with.  Though the ruthless beast would stay forever, haunting… slipping in and out of murky shadows for centuries to come.  

I would be left behind.  

I would be carried with him

I mourned the death of this identity.  I had grown attached to the servant Michaelis, and I was not too prideful to admit that. I wanted Sebastian to be all he was, and all he would ever be. He hadn’t been Sebastian until he had met me, and yet he had since become so entrapped within that role, that perhaps he had lost a part of who he had been before.  He wasn’t a demon… he couldn’t be, wholly.  I had seen too many of his different pieces.  Yet I could say surely that he was far from being a man. He was too ethereal and dark to be anything but a demon, and yet he was too sensual and real to be anything but my butler. I decided that he wasn’t either choice. He was simply Sebastian. Sebastian was who he was… and he danced upon an entirely new plane of existence. I could not put him in a box, for he was unconfined.

Yet we both knew that Sebastian could not exist without me, just as Ciel could not exist now without Sebastian… and I couldn’t help but wonder if he had finally become him.

Who had he been before? How many Sebastians had there been before me? How many roles had he played, in how many different eras and times… past and future? What exactly was he capable of if left to his own control? Such a thought struck fear within me, for I had only known him for a brief moment before he had catered to me to become exactly what I had willed him to. Would he become that creature again, after this? Would I be permitted to gaze upon such a form once again?

I looked up to his handsome face, taking in every inch of skin… every pore and every detail of color. I memorized the way his lips curled, and the sharp arch of his brow. I inhaled and digested the perfectly glowing color of his eyes, his finely sculpted jawline… his eyelashes which cast shadows upon his flawless cheeks in the unforgiving light of late morning. Hotness pinched at my eyes, and I blinked away the thought that this was going to be one of the last moments I had with him as my butler. I was foolish to have forgotten that Sebastian wasn’t all this creature was. He was nameless… timeless. He was everything, and nothing.

He was infinite.

I reminded myself for the thousandth time, and yet it meant something different, now.

I curled further into him, reveling in the last moments of certainty before I knew I would have to let it be swept away into the vast, endless darkness of sky and wind and sulfur. I suppose every living being which had ever dwelled upon this planet would sometime have to die. We would all crumble to dust. The only thing we would have to cling to would be our souls, and I had sold mine to something despicable. Yet I wanted no other being to have it. I wanted him to keep it safe, as only he could… yet the thought of him being someone I did not know brought a new fear into me, and I realized how foolish I had been. I knew he could not love me, but I had never thought once that he would lie to me.

‘I do not lie.’

It was a vow he had spoken to me ages ago, and I had always believed it to be true… but what if that in its self had been a farce? What if it was more than what it appeared to be? My heart tugged at me to forget this, and I listened. It was impossible not to obey something so demanding and eager.

I felt his voice against my cheek before I heard it,

“We have almost arrived.”

His voice sounded like soft rain on a dark, winter day. He was expressionless; devoid of emotion. If I were honest with myself, it frightened me more than I liked to admit. I could feel my throat tighten, and I gave a small nod in response, breathing in his smell of cinnamon and cloves, winter and ice… the impossible. I clutched tighter to his lapel, caressing the fabric with my ungloved fingers. My gaze stayed upon my fingers, and I dared not close my eyes against his chest. The ring on my thumb gleamed brightly in the sun, reflecting its meticulously cut shape onto my face in a blue haze of light. It seemed empty… broken.

It was meaningless now.

In a sudden surge of bravery and glee, I pulled it off my finger; examining it carefully. I wondered why I held onto something that meant nothing. 

This ring was not my father. 

My father would only be avenged in the moment wherein each of those cretin were long left without a heartbeat. I quickly tore at the gleaming gold clinging to my other finger, holding them tightly within my grasp. Why had I ever been attached to anything? I watched them shimmering in the light one last time before I clamped my fingers around their shapes. I closed my eyes, brining my closed fist to my lips and pressing a soft kiss over my knuckles.

When I opened my eyes, I let them drop from my hand… taking not a moment to look where they had landed.

Sebastian looked down at my hard-set eyes, and I noticed that his breathing had become labored. It would not have been noticeable to anyone else. Anyone else would have thought he wasn’t breathing at all… but I knew him. My heart thudded to a halt before restarted with a harsh thud.

“That was brave.”

He muttered. I decided not to address his situation.

“They were only rings.”

I replied, stuffing my nose into the crook of his neck once more. It might’ve only been my imagination, but I thought I felt his grip tighten around me as the overcast skies above grew darker with every brooding step he took. I knew this was nearing its end. I held tighter onto him… breathed him in deeper. 

I felt my lungs constrict with stress when I felt him stop. I took a moment before lifting my head. When I did, I found that he was staring at me with those deep, crimson eyes. I shuddered as I felt him draw closer and pull me to him. My hand caressed his face, and I drew in a deep breath as those fingers caress skin of ivory white. He set me down onto the endless cobblestone. My hand fell away from his face, and I forced myself to look away before I began to cry and bared to him all of my broken pieces. My eyes prickled and stung again with that wet hotness, and I forced myself to breathe deeply into the humid air around me. I stepped a few paces, away, eyeing the building before me with a sort of accuse blindness as I attempted to take in its structure. 

His footsteps behind me were the ticking of a grandfather clock; the deep, steady pace set by years and years of rusted gears turning loyally within the wood. I focused on that sound until it stopped beside me, and dared not to look at him. Instead, my eyes decided to scan the white marble of the building. Its entrance was tall and dark; deeply colored wooden doors that looked as though it took many men to open it. The courtyard was larger than even my own, and I began to step across the distance as I approached those brooding doors. Sebastian followed me… always followed me.

Where are we? I thought, It doesn’t matter anymore.

“You know where we are going, yes?”

“Yes, my lord. Please follow me.”

I nodded, and he led me to the right wall of the building, towards a window which did not seem to open. He stopped me before I could walk within view of the dark glass, and we both sunk into the shadows which lay liquidly against the walls.

“You cannot see them, but I urge you to be careful as I am sure that their eyes are watching us.”

Sebastian whispered lowly into my ear.

“You’re going to break the glass?”

I whispered back, back pressing against the cool marble.

He turned to me, his eyes the only light within our little pocket of darkness,

“Your vengeance lay just behind it.”

I paused for a moment. For the first time, I had not a clue what to think or what to do. Reality seemed to flood me with its cruel, ice cold waters, and I could feel myself shivering despite the thick suit I worse. This was all becoming over. Everything seemed to disappear before my burning, raging eyes; mother’s lullabies, father’s wisdom… Sebastian’s kisses. He seemed to be listening to something within the walls, and I took the moment to prepare myself to say the words to send this off to hell… all of this. I drew in a breath just as Sebastian turned back to me and said,

“Break it.”

It was a means to an end.

“Break it, and kill everyone inside. If there are children, make sure they aren’t hurt… not a scratch on them. Do you understand?”

He nodded at me, and I blinked away that wetness again.

I gripped my eyepatch in my hands, tearing it from my face and letting it drop to the ground.

“That’s an order, Sebastian.”

He sank to his knees before me, dropping his head in obedience.

“Yes, my lord.”

He stood. 

“Please close your eyes.”

I crouched lowly, doing as I was told and covering my face with my forearms. I could hear my own rapid breath against my ears, and I could feel the contract’s anger pulsing within my eye as he separated from me. I felt him draw farther away until I couldn’t hear him anymore, and the sound of breaking glass filled my ears.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“I am not your master, Sebastian.”
> 
> My smirk faded, blending again into the soft curve of my lips. He looked somewhat surprised by this, as if he had not a clue what I was to him if I did not own him.
> 
> “At least… not anymore.”'
> 
>  
> 
> Sebastian was infinite, and this demon was not. 
> 
> Though I knew that I loved them both the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prepare yourselves

I could feel the darkness spilling from him, and I heard him snarl like whatever it was crawling underneath his human skin. My heart was beating fast… faster, as I felt trepidation fill the air and harden it with resolve. All was silent for one beat, two… and then I heard someone scream. It was loud and scared, penetrating the air and sending my hair on end. I stood swiftly, peaking over the edge of ragged glass and peering into the darkness of whatever room Sebastian had just entered. At first I saw nothing but blackness… felt nothing but the cool, stale air inside. As my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I began to make out several figures draped in long, flowing cloaks. They looked as phantoms would, hiding in the blankness from which they had been begotten from. They all huddled in one corner of the room, protected by nothing as the shadow that had become of Sebastian prowled and curled around them earnestly. He was haunting and unforgiving as he whispered hell into their miserable ears. 

Too distracted was I by this ominous display, that I failed to notice the large, steel cages lining the far wall. Bunches of children were huddled together in a heap of wracking shoulders and shuddering cries. They were as afraid of Sebastian as the cultists were, that much was certain. I wondered what had been different about me, that I had thought to harness such a power and use it to free myself of any burden.

Don’t be frightened.

I thought,

It will all be over soon… he is here to help you.

He was my very own Sirius. A black hole which I owned and bred to perfection by feeding it my little bits of lightness. He fed off of my collapsing innocence, and yet he still bent with it as I willed him to do.

He circled the vermin which were too cowardice to show their ugly faces, shaking and spiraling into nothingness around them. He wove his gentle tendrils around their necks, inside their mouths… into their ears and eyes. The children began screaming, begging for the thing to stop its torment, and I smirked viciously to myself. This is what they deserved. This is what they were supposed to feel. They were supposed to feel smothered by their own evil… supposed to understand what violation meant. I needed them to understand this pain I had been plagued with all of these years. To have your only lifeline torn from you by an indestructible force. Sebastian was not that blazing fire, yet I decided that he possessed many of the same properties. 

Many of the men tore off their masks, clawing at their skin in a pitiful and vain attempt to rid of the demon. I could feel his dark chuckle inside of my stomach as he forced himself around them… into them. I watched in earnest, reveling in this destruction, yet all the while I could feel the string stretching between us. Our bond flickered in and out of continuity, burning and stinging upon my eye which had once held deep, cerulean blue. I kept myself hidden, wishing it to be over.

Every time that I had imagined this moment, I had always stood before them… cursing them, damning them for what they had done. I had always been so brave in my mind as I watched them fall apart before me, telling them that this was how their fates were to be met… met this way because of me. Finally, this fantasy… this idea had become reality and it was much more frightening, and much more disturbing than I had ever thought it to be. My focus was less on those hooded figures, and more on the certain mask of darkness winding its self around them. I did not want them to see me. I did not want to be responsible for them any longer. I wanted them to die afraid, just as I had been… yet I did not want to carry that upon my shaking shoulders any longer. It had become far too heavy… heavier than I’d ever thought it to be. Sebastian’s job was to destroy… to conquer. I did not have to do such things any longer. I was allowed to breathe easily for once in my life, and yet all I could feel were my lungs tightening, panicking. 

This isn’t how it was supposed to feel.

It didn’t take long. They were dead in a matter of minutes. I let out a breath I hadn't known I had been holding the very moment the last one dropped to the floor, letting my head fall against the window frame. It felt as if something horrible had been dispelled from the air. A heavy weight lifted off my chest, and my knees buckled as I sank to the ground. My resolve was weak, now. I was nothing. I no longer had the need for a name, nor a purpose. Everything felt light, and yet I still could hear the children’s troubled cries as Sebastian circled around them, unlocking their cages. There would be no need to tend to them, nor to call the yard. They were sure to find their way home, or to someone who could help. Those who couldn’t… well, that was not my job any longer.

I felt my chest swell with warmth as Sebastian returned to me in shadow. He lingered in the air for a moment, thin tendrils beginning to take the shape of a man. I looked up at him, and I could feel my face soften with relief, and with sadness. His whisper curled and spun in the air, rolling off of him in waves of coldness. But soon, he was my wonderful butler again… save for the whips of black smoke which trailed off of him in blankets of mist. They seemed to melt into the darkened sky behind him, blending in with the rain. I watched, listening as he knelt before me, taking a hand to my cheek and cupping it softly within his palm.

“Let us go somewhere quiet, now then.”

I nodded, leaning into his touch. I needed to feel as much of it as I could, now.

He took my hand, helping me stand on shaking legs. He made a move to carry me again, yet I brushed his steady arms away.  “I can walk on my own.”

I did not look at him.

He took me unto a secluded wood nearby, leading me into a small clearing. It seemed as though the trees were made of ashes, when from mist and candlelight… and I decided that once again that the barrier between two worlds must have collided somehow, setting all of hell loose upon this small patch of earth. Looking up, I found that the sky was hidden from view, blocked by the massive tress which were towering above us. 

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled low, and steady.

I felt as if I were floating, and yet there was a certain feeling building steadily within my stomach and chest. It tightened there, squeezing and pulling. It felt hot, and heavy… burning up into my eyes in the form of tears, and I let them go. They slipped out like uncharted diamonds, falling to the mossy ground below me. They sunk into the soft green… yet another tear shed by yet another foolish man. I felt Sebastian close behind me, and I could sense his trepidation as he reached out to touch me softly. I started briefly at the contact, far more aware and cautious of this unpredictable beast than ever before. I was not afraid. I could never fear him. He was a part of me, as I was him… and it was bound to stay that way. I had been different to him, that I was certain of. I had done my best to be sure it would be impossible to forget me, and I could tell he never would by the way his fingers caressed the curve of my shoulder so softly he felt as feathers would.

“Are you frightened?”

He asked me, whispering sinisterly into my ear.

“I am not afraid of monsters.”

I replied, turning my head to catch his eyes with my own. His mouth hovered over mine, and I gripped the back of his neck with my pale, cold hand. 

“I have so much to tell you, and so little to say.”

I whispered, fondling the little folded note which rested still within my pocket. 

“Mmm…”

he replied,

“You have an infinity to tell me.”

He was right. I would forever be inside of him… unwilling to burn out, still. I was sure he would be able to hear every word, even though none were bound to be spoken. I rested my forehead against his, pulling the little note out from where it had been placed.

“You did this.”

I said, placing it into his hand blindly.

“Why?”

I asked, eyes pleading with him to explain his conundrum. He did not, simply leaning in to capture my lips with his own; jaws dropping and hands shaking as I welcomed him. I felt his hands tremble up my sides and across my chest, this time placing his letter underneath my crisp, white shirt. I gasped as he did so, surprised at the sudden contact, and pulled away from him to breathe. 

“You’ve drowned me, Sebastian.”

I said, suddenly.

It was as if every word I had been trying to say came to me in this one, perfect sentence. He had completely, utterly drowned me. He had filled my lungs with his breath, enveloped me within his arms… caressed my everything as soft as water would. 

“You’ve drowned me.”

I said again, breathless.

“And I can’t breathe… I can’t think. You’ve completely taken over my mind. I am not afraid, but you frighten me more than anything… and not because you’re going to take what is yours. My soul has always been yours, Sebastian.”

I paused for a fraction of a moment, blinking away more tears which threatened to surface.

“You frighten me because I did not drown by falling into the water. I drowned by staying there.”

He stared at me for a moment, something inhuman swirling in his eyes. His hands gripped me tightly, drawing me to him… carding through my hair. His expression seemed apologetic. The lines of his face had softened into something far more human than I had seen from him before. He seemed to acknowledge this power he held over me, and he used it carefully.

“That, my darling… is the horrible thing called love.”

He thumbed away a few stray tears.

‘And I am afraid that I have forgotten what it’s like to feel love.’

It was something he had said to me long, long ago. It wandered through my mind with shivering abandon. We had both changed immensely since then. I no longer considered myself a child, and I no longer considered him a demon. I felt a chuckle bubble up within my throat, and I noted his surprise at this.

“How beautiful, and foolish… correct?”

I teased him.

He knew very well that I loved him. Whatever twisted love it was, it was undoubtedly real. It was realer than the trees around us… realer than the rain that began to fall upon them. I believed he loved me to the best of his ability. 

Oh, how does a demon love?

“Yes. That is correct, my master.”

“I am not your master, Sebastian.”

My smirk faded, blending again into the soft curve of my lips. He looked somewhat surprised by this, as if he had not a clue what I was to him if I did not own him.

“At least… not anymore.”

I finished. This seemed to ease him, somehow… as if he had just remembered the reason in which we were standing here. 

“Do you regret this?”

He finally asked, kissing my neck softly to remind me of the thing which could never be named.

“No.”

I replied with firmness,

“No human ever truly asks for happiness, Sebastian. They only ever ask for a little less pain.”

I spoke as if I were not a human myself, and I suppose I was attempting to distance myself from what I was facing.

“I’m not quite sure what I have gotten… but I do know that proper punishment has been given to those whom deserved it. That was it… wasn’t it?”

He hummed in response, and I was entirely unsure what that meant. I felt my eyes and lips begin to quiver as the emptiness within me grew into something larger than myself. Every second I stood there, watching him as he watched me was agony. We had yet again trapped ourselves in our own little prison. The contract was absolute… it was the only thing that was. I took his hand in mine, slowly pulling the white muslin from his marked hand, letting the glove fall breathless to the ground below. 

He wouldn’t be needing it after all of this.

The faustian mark glowed dimly in the faint light, pulsing, and seemingly alive. I glanced back at him, and his stare was as cold and fierce as ice against my skin. I took a shuddering breath, pulling that hand up to my own heart. I held it there, smiling faintly at the demon before me. 

What a strange life this had been.

A strange life, indeed.

“Thank you.”

I said, and I knew he could hear the sincerity in my voice. I caressed his cheek once more before letting my hands abandon his touch for the last time. Something glittered within his eyes, and I watched with wonder as he evaluated me carefully. I took the note in hand once more, and carried it over to a small willow tree. I wedged the small piece of parchment between a branch and the thin trunk, watching as it fluttered dimly in the wind. It would one day become a part of the tree its self, melting into the thick bark and returning to a place of peace. The letter had meant something I did not understand. The only thing I could know from it was that if my life had been worth anything, it was worth Sebastian’s words.

I turned back to him, sighing deeply.

“You have done well.”

I said,

“Take it. Take what belongs to you.”

I stepped forward, and with each footstep placed I recounted words we had spoken, kisses we had shared… places he had touched me. I welcomed my whole life thus far into my own lungs… accepting and defeating it all. I allowed myself to let this life go, to become cognizant of the moment. With each breath, I let them go. I let them all go. I let the memories go. I breathed in the touch of his skin, and as I exhaled, I let his hands linger no more. Breathe in, breathe out. Let in, let go. I finally reached him, taking what little time I had left to let in every single inch of him. 

I memorized him for one last time, and as I let my breath abandon me, I let him go, as well.

Everything was unbearably quiet.

His eyes held so much pain… so much wonder. They held the world within that shimmering red. The wind and rain, the sleet and snow… the hot sting of summer on your back. He was all of these things, and more. He deserved this. I know he needed this. This was my final submission to him; an ending page to a book so carefully written that it only contained a few, thin pages. I tilted my head to the sky, and as my eyes scanned the trembling treetops, I felt his hands grasp me. I closed my eyes against him as I was pulled into the darkest corner, feeling for once the way the air felt light against my skin. 

He placed me down atop a bed of wild daisies. They weren’t unlike the flower which bloomed rampantly around the manor’s grounds. They reminded me of home, and it was comforting. He hovered over me, breathing warm breath into my neck, and I felt calm. Caressing his hair, I shushed him with a gentle susurrate. He growled dimly in response, and I could feel his wavering trepidation as his hands wandered over my skin… nails becoming claws as his canines became elongated fangs against my flesh. I sensed him grappling desperately for control, and so my hands left him… favoring instead the soft ground beside my head. I gently closed my eyes again, letting him run his lips over the soft curve of my neck… onto my jaw to give it a kiss. I felt an overwhelming darkness, as if he intended to let out every evil he held inside of him. I felt his hot breath shuddering over my lips, and I parted them slightly to let him press a hard kiss to them. He was rough with me. I relaxed under his kiss, and the rough touch of his claws encasing my middle. 

I could feel his hunger… could feel his lust for both flesh and blood.

I knew he was taking his time… tasting me little by little. His kisses now felt starved and angry, and they left me breathless… weak. I began to feel intensely lightheaded, yet still I allowed him to ravish me. His claws drew blood from just beneath my skin, and as I gasped for breath he stole it from the air. 

So this is how he will take it, then?

My eyes flew open with primal sort of fear at this unexpected contact, and I found his eyes had turned completely black and brooding. There was no white… no hinting red. All they were was the deepest of obsidian… hypnotizing, and terrifying all at once. I tried to breathe again, only to find that I could not. He was so close… staring at me. He sucked the very life from my lips, drawing deep breaths and stealing my voice, my energy… my thoughts. I suppose this was my soul; the thing which he took so greedily. 

I reached up to grasp onto his shoulders, never wishing to let go until it was over. He growled, and I noticed that enormous, black wings had sprouted from his back, and they were covering me… shedding those feathers which I had often found in hidden places over me. He wrenched my hands away from him, pinning them back into place, and I tried to cry out, only to find that I could not. His eyes somehow grew darker… heavier as he caressed the flesh of my palms and wrists with his talons. A horrible sound began to reverberate against the air, then. It was an awful, hollow sound… as if nothingness was stealing nothingness. My ears began to ring, eyes becoming unbearably heavy. Still I fought to remain conscious… to stare into those terrifying eyes just a little while longer. I realized that I was hanging onto life, hanging onto Sebastian… and Sebastian no longer existed. He needed me to let him have this. He needed things to return to how they had been before this all had happened. I suppose he wanted to forget, for perhaps I had made him feel more than he was willing to admit. 

Soon, my vision began to blacken. I fought against his binding hold upon my fists. I wanted to pull him to me again… wanted to caress that silken hair. Even this could never kill my unending love, unending questions… the unbearable need I held for his gentle touch.

He was not so gentle now, but I don’t think I minded much.

I realized then, that perhaps I was infinite, too.

It was the only word that could fit such a feeling. I knew unto the depths of me that even after infinity had run its course, I would always love this creature. I do not think I could call him Sebastian, any longer. That part of him was gone, now. He was only a demon, and I had been but a fleeting affair; a tiny glimmer of satisfaction in the deep ocean that was the time he had spent here. I wondered, just before I felt my eyes succumbing to their tiredness, what exactly I had been to him.

My eyes drifted shut… hands uncurling as I let him take the last few breaths I possessed. 

I would never know the answers, and I decided that that must’ve been alright. 

Nothing mattered any longer.

I could hear my heartbeat in my own ears, slowing… pounding softer and softer. It wasn’t he whom had been infinite, it had been Sebastian. This thing was no longer that man.

Sebastian was infinite, and this demon was not. 

Though I knew that I loved them both the same.

I realized, that my prophecy had been true. I would never have a need for a world without him in it, for I never would have a world again that wasn’t him. If I could have sighed, I would have then. Peace overcame me, and I felt myself becoming one with him… with it. It was as if my shooting star had collided with a collapsar, leaving it to shine for nothing but the blackness. And there it would be, shining on infinitely within that quiet place… soaring from one corner of the universe to another, before glimmering softly, and jumping on to the next.

I would be the only glint of light within him which would never, ever extinguish.

Then, I felt the last pieces of me becoming him as well… melting and burning into those horribly beautiful eyes. What color had they been? I couldn’t remember. I could only remember blackness… could only remember the spark of his touch. I lost myself to him, forgetting whom I was, and why. I only knew that he had been there forever, it seemed… yet I couldn’t quite place a name to the feeling. I couldn’t place a face to it, either. 

I could decide what they were after I slept for awhile. 

I felt myself drifting away into something unbearably familiar and warm… gentle at its core, yet I knew it would never appease to this. I tried to smile through the darkness at it, but found that I could not. I could not move at all. I was drowning in this creature… sinking. I felt as though I were floating in molasses… sweet, sticky, and all-consuming. Down further I sank. Was I cold or warm? I couldn’t tell. I only knew I was becoming the darkness.

Down, down… down. 

And suddenly, there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry, it isn't over yet


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it gone?”
> 
> I asked hoarsely, looking expectantly upon him.
> 
> His fingers fluttered over the lashes of my right eye.
> 
> “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't yell at me

Everything came back to me, violently rushing past my eyes and ears and suddenly, I could feel again. I could feel his hands upon my hips, the soft earth beneath my shuddering form. I could feel the air against my sweating forehead, and I could hear once again the rain which fell in tandem all around us. It was a peaceful, quiet sound. It hummed with a resolute tempest, its frigid mist the only thing which could touch me so softly. Though I felt so suddenly cold, something quite warm and welcome was pressed softly to my lips… so softly that I wondered if it was even there at all. My eyes opened to see his closed so gently, lashes shadowing his smooth cheeks, and he was kissing me. I gasped lightly, clinging once again to his broad shoulders, clawing at the fabric there with a shred of absolute terror pressed beneath my fingernails. His hands held me softly and kindly, and as I pulled away from him roughly, his eyes opened to reveal a soft, amber glow. Scanning his features for any remaining monstrosities, I was relieved to find that there was only his handsome face. I could hear my heart pounding within my ears, and I flung my arms around his neck to pull him tightly to me. 

It was just Sebastian… only Sebastian.

No longer the eyes of the devil staring directly into mine.

No longer cruel nor bloodthirsty as a rabid animal should be.   
Undeniable hotness stung and burned at my eyelids, and this time I had no will to blink it away. Tears began to roll freely down my flushed cheeks, and I sobbed weakly into his shoulder, clutching at his frame and pulling weakly at his hair. His arms came warm and strong around me, and I could feel my vision clearing from the blackness. 

He was here. 

There could be no doubt… not when he was so sure and firm and much less formless as black, whips smoke. 

Gripping his face within my hands, I pulled away to ponder his complexion. His expression held an unfamiliar kind of softness, and as I gazed into his eyes, my brows knitted with deep confusion. I stared at him pleadingly, blinking away the tears which still seemed to run asunder.

As the air settled and quieted around us, I felt the sinews and muscles in my body relaxing back into livelihood. I felt each inch of flesh melt and shake over the ground beneath me. With gentle tears, I ran my thumbs along his cheekbones, for I feared he might simply divide into the air and disappear before me. A remorseful sound left his lips. It was indistinguishable and sounded fragile, like the thinnest of glass. He thumbed away the wetness clinging as dew unto my face, and as my vision cleared into glass, I drew breath and whispered shakily… for I was fearful to disturb this strange air,

“Why didn’t you take it?”

He looked at me with a dim sparkle in his eyes… as if he knew something I did not. His eyes bored into me, daringly intense and illicit. I felt a shiver dare to run across my spine, yet I willed myself back into calmness. Waiting for him so answer, I soon decided that he simply would not. My hands finally fell into tiredness from his skin, and I sighed slatternly into the thick air around us. 

I dared not look into those sweet, warming eyes. 

Each inhalation caught tight in my throat, miming the dangerous quiet of a forest at night, when the mice and rabbits know there is a strange wolf prowling just outside their nests and burrows.

I found I hadn’t a single word to say.

Breath scarce and eyelids fluttering, I crawled up onto hands and knees, sitting myself down before him… readying myself for the heaviness which was certain to place its self upon my shoulders. I looked at him expectantly, and with the weightiest gaze I dare to say I have ever laid upon him.

‘Why?’

It seemed to say.

The bittersweetness of an empty smile left his face as soon as it spread across it, and he stood carefully, turning away from my shaking form. He seemed to move differently throughout the world now… as if he had decided he occupied a different place within it. He said,

“I could not.”

His voice was quieter than it had been before,

“Perhaps I’ve grown too fond of you.”

The air seemed to chill and swirl around him, and I noticed a certain glimmer about his voice and eyes… as if he missed a home he would never see again… a home wherein he had been hit by his father and scolded by his mother. There was no need to miss such a home.

There was no need to miss him.

He stilled, pulling off his glove to examine his right hand, which I was not close enough to see.

“Perhaps I enjoy being Sebastian far too much.”

So he had recognized this separation.

So he had recognized that this… whatever ‘this’ was… had been something different.

My heart fluttered wildly, and my stomach twisted into knots. I could feel something was so, utterly wrong. I could feel a piece of me was missing. Something akin to fear welled up inside my chest, and I knew not what to make of it. I rose slowly from the ground, approaching him earnestly, if not with some glint of hesitation. He still seemed so wild to me, even now… and I feared the feral nature of his core.

He turned to face me, clenching his pale hand which held the very bindings of my soul to his. He quickly pulled me towards him, and I found myself dizzy as he did so. He kept his hand well hidden, choosing to lace it behind my ear as he caressed the shortest hairs at the base of my neck with his fingers. His eyes locked with mine, and I saw fear and wonder within them. They owned a brooding darkness… a depth only he could ever know. A sense of knowingness flushed my heart, then… and I gently pulled his arm away from me, grasping his hand in mine. A tearing feeling pulled at me as I deftly turned that slender hand, only to reveal the smooth, unmarked flesh atop it.

There lay no covenant upon it. Wondering if my features had bared the same fate, I glanced into the deepness of his eyes once again.

“Is it gone?”

I asked hoarsely, looking expectantly upon him.

His fingers fluttered over the lashes of my right eye.

“It is.”

His eyes seemed kinder than they ever had been before. They held a certain warmness within them… glittering more with golden brown now, than with that intimidating redness.

“Did you do this?”

I whispered, pulling my hand from his.

He shook his head, stepping closer to me. I stepped back warily. I wondered if I could trust this being which was no longer bound to me. 

He was no longer bound to me… the very thought pierced me straight through.

“What are you?”

I muttered, pondering this sudden change of sentiments. He was the only one capable of dissolving such an immaculate bond. Now that it was gone, I feared I had reason to be wary of him. It hurt as anything had before… that such a binding force had been destroyed. I felt empty inside, somehow. There was something extremely powerful missing, and yet something had already begun to replace it… something smaller, and less profound. It was something entirely human which leeched out of him, and his expression changed to upmost vulnerability.

“Sebastian…”

I whispered breathlessly.    
It came back to me, then.

I should have noticed. I should have known… I should have paced myself and my greed. Every bit of confusion I had been met with had a reason and a purpose to exist. I should have observed such changes in his behavior, yet I had reveled in them, instead. I had taken the seed of humanity which had been growing inside of him, and I had watered it profusely with my own damned and immaculate emotions. I suppose his letter was the very apex of this change. I had noticed the change, yet I had thought this had been the seasoning to his meal… him manipulating my own horrible heartbreak to ultimately favor him. This, somehow… was worse. It was far worse.

Light refracted in rivulets across his skin, and I noticed that it had the slightest, pink flush to it. He stood there for a moment, bringing a hand unto his chest where his heart should have been. His eyes closed gently, and I could tell that he was listening… could tell that he was encountering something he had not felt in hundreds of years, no doubt. When his eyes fluttered open, he reached out again to grasp my shaking hand in his. Brining it up to his chest, his eyes locked with mine, and I could not help but feel the most horrible sense of dread overcome me. Keeping my eyes heavily attached to his, I allowed him to press my hand against his warm chest. Electricity passed through each of my senses… overwhelming and true. Something beat just below my palm, and I realized then what he had been listening for.

Eyes widening, I could feel its steadiness just beneath his skin. 

I pulled my hand away, frightened for a reason that I could not decipher.

“No…”

I muttered,

“no.”

He seemed so calm, but it was the kind of calmness one encountered when they accept and relent to something both horrible and wonderful… the kind of calmness that comes when you realize for the first time as a child, that once dead, someone lost shall never return. 

He turned away from me, again.

The Sebastian I had known had been killed and resurrected too many times to count, and now I feared that I may never know him quite the same again.

Not a demon, nor a man. More man than demon… and yet, more demon than man.

He was a living paradox to me… something which I knew would always intrigue the darkest parts of me.

I watched him as he stood there, for awhile… unsure of what I was to do next. When he would touch me now, it felt less like he was taking every inch of will from me, and more like he was giving his back until I lost mine into the depths of something far greater. I wondered if that is what real love was supposed to feel like; giving and taking instead of only giving and only taking. He seemed so new and raw… yet there was something still so utterly dark and complex about him, and I could feel it. I could feel it crawling through the air and under my skin… ready to pounce at any moment. It was terrifying and exhilarating… an old, yet familiar feeling. It was as if that darker part of him was now hidden so deep that it became even blacker and more illicit than it had been before.

“Sebastian.”

I said again, stepping towards him. Glancing back, he turned around, gazing so deeply into my eyes that I could nearly see their color in his. As I stepped closer, he pulled me to him lazily. There was a moment of silent air between us before his lips pressed hard against mine, hands sliding up the small of my back. I melted against him, something just short of relief washing over me. My knees buckled, and he pulled me up against him so tightly I could scarcely breathe. He was desperate and clumsy… as if he were only now breathing for the very first time. His lips were hungry against mine; tongue sliding past my lips to lick softly at my own.

Look at what I have done to you… 

I thought hazily.

Look at what I have done to you.

My eyes grew heavy, and I let them fall closed… felt my stomach fill with butterflies, and something else which was entirely new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was very nervous posting this chapter... i fear that it is somewhat controversial ?? you either loved it or hated it... either way, leave me a comment and let me know


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I suddenly knew the word I had been looking for, and I realized that it had been there all along, waiting for me to understand its purpose. 
> 
> Infinite.
> 
> The word was infinite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late update, there's just no way I can possibly find the words to end this story right.

Greedy hands fisted within my hair and pulled me flush against him. His breath came in short and raspy… taking what was his as relished in the taste of my lips. His hand slid down my back, caressing the delicate curve with his fingers. He groaned lowly onto my lips, and I could feel my eyes roll into the back of my head. I was floating. So much seemed to hang between us and it was breaking, falling violently into this last, great crescendo before the trance could be lifted as the final curtain fell. I wondered if there would be a final curtain. I wondered if he was cognitive enough at the moment to taste the salt upon my lips… to feel the way I clutched so desperately to his shirt lapel and hair.

His hands felt so warm and sure, and I noticed they were trembling as he caressed my hips and thighs, pushing me back against the roughness of a tree. I hummed with satisfaction, a feeling I had become so desperate to feel. His breath was ragged and sharp against my neck as he bent low to whisper soft kisses over my blushing flesh. A gasping breath caught in my throat and I swallowed it hard, twining my arms around his neck and head and letting the warmth of him entrap me wholly and unboundedly. He pushed against me, hands gripping tightly onto clothed sides as dark, ebony eyelashes fluttered over my naked jawline. 

“How does it feel?”

I asked,

“what do I feel like?”

I shuddered as he ran that silver tongue up my neck to flick against the small, sapphire hanging from my ear. I could feel his hardness pushing up against me as he shamelessly thrust himself between my thighs. Again, my breath caught within my windpipe as he did so, knocking my head back against the earthly smell of sap and bark behind me. My hands were shaking so violently that I had to pull his hair in fistfuls, if only to use it as an anchor for my drifting mind. 

“You feel…”

his voice was low and menacing… dominant and aggressive in a way in which only the most humane can muster.

“like heaven.”

he squeezed my thighs tightly and whispered.

I gasped.

“My beautiful, small sliver of heaven.”

He buried his nose within the crook of my neck, and inhaled so deeply that I felt as though he were taking my own breath with him. It was an intense and carnal action, and yet it did not frighten me. When he lifted his eyes to meet mine, every single thought left me blank and hungry. It was as if I were staring into the deepest of lakes… the most mysterious of waters. They were so intensely dark and full of every pain, every sorrow… yet now they held them so much closer to the surface. Now they held them for the whole world to bear eyes upon, and not for just my petulant gaze. I could feel my eyes lidding heavily, breath becoming slow and deep as each rib expanded and contracted underneath his constant heat and pressure. 

“My Ciel.”

He murmured.

“Yes?”

I replied,

“yes.”

He ground against me once more, and I whimpered hotly, breath falling in rivulets over his lips and neck. It sent the most wonderful electric hum up my spine, and I found myself arching against him, desperate for friction. 

He bent closer to me then, lips barely grazing across the other’s softness, and said,

“you make me feel.”

I was lost in that moment forever, riding upon waves of silk and obsidian which sparkled as stars underneath my breath and tongue. 

He pushed himself so close to me, my back scraped against the tree bark and I could feel it rip the expensive cloth. I didn't mind one bit, savoring the lust that boiled hot and hard just beneath his skin. Every little touch he gave and took felt as fire against my goose-pimpled skin. It spurred me on in the most shameful of ways… ripping my breaths from me and demanding that I feel him. Grasping his hair tightly within my small, determined fists, I brought him close to whisper the boldest words I could muster straight into his ear,

“I want you inside of me, Sebastian. I need you. I need to feel you deep… so deep- ah!.”

He growled deeply within his throat at my words, rutting against me as a starved man would beg for food. I took advantage of his unaccustomedness to his new, overwhelming feelings, and bit at his ear bravely. His fingers dug into my hips and thighs, sending the sweetest pain through every nerve ending within me. My tone when I spoke was made to be as seductive as I could manage, and I continued to speak directly into that pale ear,

“hah- you don’t know how it feels, Sebastian. To want something so badly… to need something so horrible and wretched and- ohh… so wrong.”

He bit at my throat and I moaned for him, pulling him closer and tugging harder at his hair. 

I knew he always liked that.

“So deplorable am I… so depraved, decrepit and disadvantaged. If anyone but you knew of my indulgences… if anyone but you could ever dare to touch me-”

Though he was no longer wholly a demon, his jealously was prominent in the way he raked his teeth across my collarbone. So deadly was his possession over me, he silenced me with a searing kiss. This was to be a demon’s undoing. His own lust… his own desire and madness had been the very means to his end. I had been the means to his end… just as he would be to me. I imagined that I had been this darkness’ only light… his very own piece of salvation, as he had put it. I had imagined myself to be so damaged, and so unsalvageable… if I could turn this thing of night into a thing of beauty, what more was there in this universe to discover?

What more was there to learn but him, and him only?

“And now you may know how it feels.”

I broke the kiss and whispered heavily,

“now you may know how I feel within your grasp.”

This incredible need… this undeniable necessity for him overtook me once again. I felt as if it were impossible to breathe without him. From the moment I met him, I had needed him to live, both figuratively and literally. I had known, for these past seven years, what it had like to live on borrowed time. I hadn’t remembered when I had begun to crave him so ravenously, and yet I feared that this would be a feeling in which could never leave me.

He tore at my suit jacket with one hand, struggling to get it off my shaking frame. I buried my nose in the crook of his neck, breathing heavily as I wriggled out of the clothing. His undoing was as obvious and clear as mine was, now… as his fingers raked across my skin and gripped at my garments, attempting to rip them off of me. I clung to his shoulders, intense overwhelm washing over me. It gnawed at me, tearing away the very last bit of control I may have still been clinging to… destroying the very last brick in the wall which had been put up between us. 

“Ah- Sebastian!”

I whimpered, pushing back up against him as his touches became rough, and he tore away my shirt… gripping languidly at the flushed skin beneath.

It was nearly too much. His skin seemed to burn against mine, hands sweeping across my creamy skin. His kisses were rough and imperfect, just as I wished they had been from the very beginning. I had told myself that he would never become this. I had known for many years that he was incapable of becoming attached… incapable of anything but lust. I had told myself all of this and more simply because I had been afraid of what was to become of the both of us if he were ever to sympathize with my petty humanity. 

I knew know that this had been foolish.

His madness was the most trilling thing which had ever coursed throughout my veins. It was as if we were locked in an uncontrolled game of catch, velocity growing with each touch of thigh against thigh… each caress of lip against skin.

I loathed him for this premiered sanctity… for his holiness had not sprung from something full of gold, but rather something full of darkness. My world had to end before it could really begin, and now that it had, I was stuck with salty, dries tears on my face, and a broken, bleeding instrument of a heart. He had played it well, and though I could feel it bursting, it also seemed to tear apart with every lingering touch. His hands again descended over each sinew and muscle of my chest, sending the most intense shiver up my spine. I arched into him, eyes fluttering closed as I felt his strong arms wrap around me.

I was set gently onto the ground, back sinking once again into the thick moss below… yet this time, the anticipation flooding my senses was one of pleasure, no longer pain. I sighed into his skin, hands sliding along his back as my legs wrapped tighter around his hips, squeezing him between my thighs. His smooth hands traveled up the length of my arms, pinning my wrists into the soft earth. I did not struggle against him, choosing instead to submit myself to his desires as he explored this new-found sensitivity. 

A knee came up to rub against my arousal, and I whimpered softly into the hair which fell as silk around the frame of my face and neck. He was slow and languid, teasing the very worst of my weaknesses out of me. I found myself unable to resist his temptation, now that I could feel him… really feel him in his entirety. Whatever his entirety was, I found myself unable to name… yet I knew it equivocated into my sun, my moon, and the whole of the skies above me. His grandeur was rather different than it had been before. He held the very inklings of his previous sentiments, and yet now it manifested in the rawest of ways; in his greedy mouth and tongue… the very taste of hunger upon his lips. 

This, I recalled, was nothing new.

It was indeed different, yet horribly, excitingly familiar.

As the softness of the ground under my skin overtook the scratches of rough bark, we became slow and steady… nearly serene. He reveled in me, taking his time in devouring me. I supposed that my fate had been turned to pleasantries, yet it still remained quite the same. I suppose my soul had always been his… had always been fated to become something immaculately tied to him. Though this taking of my soul was not fierce nor violent, it was potent all the same. I could feel the last of my resistance snap beneath the weight of his kisses, and I let them do so quietly. It was as if a certain fog was clearing from my mind, being replaced with years of certainty I had never known I possessed. 

His hands crept down slowly to my hips, gripping them… pulling at the buckle of my slacks. I nodded, to my own surprise, somehow registering this gesture as a request; something he had never given me the privilege of before. I had always thought of him as this absolute, ethereal being… one which could read my very mind, and listen to every thought. I had felt as though he had not needed permission nor order, and so this would always happen with no speech nor question to accompany it. I found that this meant he had a new found respect and understanding of what it was like to be vulnerable. Though he knew he would never need my word to grant access to the very depths of me, knowing surely that his heart could beat as fast as mine was enough to set my blood boiling with the unending heat of him.

“Yes.”

I whispered slowly and softly… yet now it was less of a useless plea, and more of a confirmation of my undoing. 

I did not beg him to fuck me. I would not. I felt it unnecessary and crude, considering the sanctity of the moment. I urged him on instead, with my breathlessness… with my beating heart which I knew he could no longer hear, yet feel beating strongly against him. His breath was hot against my ear as he pulled again at the waist of my pants, this time tugging apart the button and pulling down the zipper. I let him tug them off of my frame, and I was left bare in front of a man who had not remembered what it was like to feel his own racing heart as he did now. My head swam with these thoughts, and more… and I whined, helpless beneath him once again.

I tugged wordlessly at his waistcoat, frantic and unable to stop my shaking hands from slipping. A familiar smirk flashed across his features, and I was reminded of how desperate I was to feel him inside of me for the first time, it felt, that would be true and real… no longer a one sided fantasy I hoped, but rather something which was far more deplorable and wicked. I knew this would be the final precipice of mountain we would climb… the end of this great wave of insanity which had seemed to capture the both of us, now. It was not something to be proud of, yet it felt so real… so impossible to ignore.

The monster which had once lived within my manor now existed as an irreplaceable fog which manifested in its own beautiful way, capturing us both externally with a word… a word which meant something both necessary and terrifying. It was something he had once claimed to have forgotten, and even as I knew it to be the only truth which I would ever know, I still knew that such a sentiment was a very fragile thing. It was impeccable and absolute, yet transparent and mystic all the same.

I would never be able to shake the feeling of his skin against mine, and soon I realized he had undressed without me realizing. He pressed against me, pale and calm and beautiful. I whimpered, pressing kisses to every inch of skin I was bound to reach. As his hardness pressed up against me, I found my fingers tugging tighter to his hair… gripping harder onto his neck. This need far surpassed any I had ever felt before. Love, lust; both words which couldn’t begin to explain the depths of my devotion. The word was on the very tip of my tongue… resting there quietly until I knew it was bound to explode in eureka.

His fingers found their way to my petal soft lips, and I took them into my mouth slowly… sucking each digit in turn and running my tongue along every knuckle it could reach.

“Mmm…”

he hummed,

“Ciel.”

I closed my eyes, then… reveling in the taste of his skin and the way his tongue seemed to fit perfectly around the letters of my name. I thoroughly enjoyed his salty-sweet taste before I felt those fingers slip from me… drawing nearer, I could tell, to my most intimate parts.

“Sebastian.”

I replied lowly.

I felt his fingers trace my entrance, and I gasped softly. His breath spilled across my neck and shoulder as he leaned ever closer… tracing his lips over my protruding collarbone. I spread my legs wider for him, inviting him to press slowly inside of me. He did, sheathing a finger into that warm heat which used to inspire his eyes to flare so brightly. I could feel the catch of my breath in my throat, and a strangled cry escaped me. He had made me into a beautiful mess… a masterpiece of painted sin upon an inconsistent precipice. When would I fall, I wondered? Then I thought, perhaps, that I already had.

He slowly began to thrust in and out. I pushed my hips up to meet every slow, languid motion, and as I clung to his shoulders and hair, he caressed my cheek so softly. I suppose, that if I hadn’t been in such an influenced state, I would have found this odd. His thumb brushed against the very skin which I am sure he had once hungered to see bleed. It was scary to think that even a monster could be corrupt and ruined by whatever this horrible emotion should be named. I thought that it might perhaps be even more wicked and cruel than the very fires of hell its self. How couldn’t it be, when it seemed to be so powerful and unrelenting… so all-consuming and inexplicable? 

He added a second finger.

I could feel my senses reaching out endlessly… searching for him as if they simply couldn’t get enough. A hand wrapped firmly around a creamy, white thigh, and I pushed myself further against him until I would’ve bet the world that there was not one inch of space between us. I tugged on his hair, breath becoming frantic and filled with anticipation. HIs fingers struck that place inside of me, and this inundated burning filled my hips with intense pleasure. I gasped… eyes shutting tightly and back bowing sharply.

“There…”

he crooned,

“there you are.”

I guessed that I could never hold a candle to his dominance, would never be able to find an inkling of that specific piece of Sebastian which made him who he was… who I was sure he was always bound to be. My hips rocked into him, and I could feel myself drawing him deeper into me as he added his third finger, pushing them deep. I hissed, fire blooming within my loins as he caressed that spot within me. 

“Ohh… Sebastian- yes!”

I moaned. 

When he pulled his fingers out of me, I felt my pleasure crest and unfold into a great wanting, a yearning for him to bury himself deep inside of me, to use me as he pleased - for his pleasure, and his alone… for now that I knew he could feel every bit of depravity within me, I needed him to revel in it as I had. I needed him to revel in me as I had in him, and would always. He was gentle, for the first time, while entering me. He swallowed every sound I made with deep, dark kisses. I was so lost in the feeling of his tongue dancing with mine, his hard cock slowly reaching into the depths of my undoing. He took his time, and I canted up to meet him, inpatient. As his teeth raked along my bottom lip, tongue swirling over and under mine, he gripped firmly to my hips, slowing his movements even further and torturing me with his sweet, rich pleasure.

I depend our kiss, searing the pleasure into each soft lick and panted breath. These urges came unto me so carnally… so undeniably. Even more so than they had before, they whispered in my ear and seemed to scratch at me… just beneath my skin. I couldn’t relieve this itch until I touched him with my own hands… felt the temporary relief of him burying himself deep before the burning came back, licking at me. There was something dark and desperate that clung to my bitten skin and rustled hair. It was far more obsolete than passion. 

He was far more obsolete.

I wriggled and writhed underneath him, scratching blood-red lines into the warm softness of his skin. There was something different about feeling something human… something far more raw and agitated. It felt as though every caress given was met with an equal amount of pleasure… as if there were more to him than just his demanding power and need to control… to take. I sighed into his ear, my breath barely a whimper, as if I feared to disturb the air between us. 

It felt too fragile… too thin.

I tried to uphold some kind of decency, for I feared that part of myself which melted under his breath and honeyed words. I feared the part of me which would submit so willingly to him. And yet he made it impossible to ignore, hands gripping against my hips and lips kissing along my smooth, pale neck. 

I feared it, and I accepted it with the whole of my being. 

He thrusted slowly once, nipping at the skin behind my ear. I clung tightly to his hair and shoulder, tilting my head for him to access more of me. 

“Hmm-”

I whined,

“don’t stop… don’t stop.”

I was willingly at his mercy, legs hooked around his waist and hands tangled around his neck and hair. He thrusted again, harder this time. I couldn’t help my voice but to fail me, and I cried out helplessly, head falling back against the leaves and grass behind me. His pace was slow and steady as he worked me… hands sliding up my chest and pinning my arms above me once again. I let him keep me there, completely vulnerable to him. 

I suppose some things were bound to never change. 

I knew he needed more control. It was a piece of his nature - a carnal instinct buried deep within his soul. As his pace began to quicken, I thrusted my own hips up to meet him. The pleasure intensified, burning me alive as I remembered how he felt… remembered how he felt me. Galaxies exploded behind my eyelids as he struck again that spot which had been buggered raw. I moaned wantonly, breath ragged and hands desperately grasping out to touch… to feel. 

It was too much… too good. There was not a way in the world I was allowed to deny this fact, and I nodded furiously, whispering half-lived words and crying out to him in abandon. I thought I had been lost within this, yet somehow, I found myself frightened and sorrowful. The feeling came quickly and suddenly, and it crashed over me so unexpectedly that I felt it drop into my stomach with great substance and density. I gasped, eyebrows knitting together and eyes widening as they filled themselves with tears. My eyelids stung with the saltiness of more tears, and I gasped again, unwilling to ignore the feeling of him pressed to deeply within me. It was as if the dam had finally broke. And when it broke, it shattered. I cried out, burying my face within the crook of his shoulder. Grief filled my senses… demanding to be felt and to be heard. It filled my lungs with frigid air, and mixed and mulled with pleasure until it all became a confusing mess of a feeling. Somehow, I reveled in it and did not wish it to leave me.

It felt like a requiem.

I felt Sebastian sink closer to me… bury himself deeper within me. 

“Yes!”

I cried out shamelessly. 

“Yes…”

he echoed deeply,

“yes.”

He pulled me up to him as he sat upright, and my knees sunk into the soft moss below them. I whined at the sudden change in position, circling my hips slowly and deliberately as I felt him sink further into me. I sighed, letting my head fall back and my back arch as I began to ride him slowly. 

“Good boy.’  He crooned softly into my ear, knowing with pride how much that name can make me come undone. He wanted me to become undone… he needed it. I somehow did too, and so I moaned loudly again and began to pull myself off of him, only to drop back down hard and fast. I gripped tightly to his shoulders, again moving myself up and down his hot, rigid length. It felt so good… so, incredibly good. I let the immense pit in my stomach melt away into fire and heat and the beginnings of euphoria. I gripped onto his hair once more, breathing frantically against his perfect mouth. His hands squeezed my thighs as he begin to rock against me, pushing himself as deep and hard as he could. I bit his bottom lip, eyes squeezing shut as he gripped me so firmly and so passionately I scarcely remembered to breathe.

I could feel my end coming, and I kissed him deeply… nails scratching against his scalp as he thrust in and out, hitting that one spot over and over and over again. It was unbearable, and I pulled away to whimper,

“I can’t, I ca- ah! Ah, hah- hgnnnn! I’m going to-“

his fingers raked against my thighs, seeking desperately for something to break.

“Ahhh!”

I came hard with a loud, shameless cry… tears spilling over my flushed cheeks. My hair stuck damp to my forehead as I arched violently against him, pulling him into me as he bit hard at my neck. He grunted lowly, and was soon to follow, slamming my hips down into his lap as he filled me with his warmth. It felt as though I had left the atmosphere and was now unable to find my purchase on land again. I collapsed onto him, and we both fell to the forest floor… breath heavy and cheeks flaming. The dizziness subsided finally, and I sighed softly into him.

As he pulled himself from me, I rolled to my side and rested my head against his chest, feeling his arms envelop me in a thick, pleasure-soaked fog. His hands stroked along my hair, and I was reminded of the horrible feeling within my chest and stomach. It was impossible to discard, and so I had no choice but to listen to what it seemed to be saying so silently. A horrible feeling enveloped me, and I realized that everything I had never known within the world had been uprooted. There was no way to predict the future, for time was indisputable. 

My eyes opened silently, and I knew that if he were to look into them then, he would see the ends of the world glinting within those deep, blue sapphires.

I wondered if he had been right in saying he would not return to the manor again.

The thought made the feeling bigger, and so I took to his lips once again, drowning myself within his kisses. As his arms wound around me, I decided it was time that I remembered how it felt to let someone go.

Let him go.

I suddenly knew the word I had been looking for, and I realized that it had been there all along, waiting for me to understand its purpose. 

Infinite.

The word was infinite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, then the epilogue. Are you ready?


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I knew that my soul would long for him infinitely… and no longer did I feel that anything could be infinite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart broke writing this ending... though I strongly believe there is no other appropriate way for their story to conclude.

“Stay.”

I hung over him in the dim light of the impending afternoon, stroking my thumbs along his cheeks… searching, it seemed, for something that I had then known to be lost. I wanted to ask him if he remembered now, what it was like to feel love, for he had once told me such a thing was impossible… though I was scared to ask, for somehow I knew I would not like the answer I would hear. 

Corruption is forever, it seemed.

“Please… stay.”

The implications were clear.

The butler Sebastian was no longer a living, breathing person… rather a figment of our collective imagination, and potent longing.  For things to return to the way they were, was nearly impossible.  He was no longer cultivated to my side by means of an inseparable, faustian bond.  There was no apparent need for him to return to the manor, and yet still, I hoped he would.

I could not bear the thought of a life without him. There would be no reason for me to keep on, after all. He had brought me into life anew by means of a set list of rules to follow. He had given me my second chance at life… he had interfered with fate. 

One cannot interfere with fate and not expect extreme and violent retaliations.

They were bound to reverberate against every inch of rib… to echo across the galaxies of each of our minds and tongues.

If there was no Sebastian, there would be no Ciel. That is how the laws of nature seemed to work now, and I could not allow myself to be so selfish as to think that I could live a life of meaninglessness, even if I had found something worth living for.

"I have nothing left to believe in but you.”

He looked at me, eyes flickering around my being as if he were trying to memorize every single pore of my skin. His hand crept up along my shoulder and to my neck, burying his fingers within my hair and tugging me down slowly.

“Please.”

I whispered, pleading… voice thick and unraveling with tears.

I had unwound myself into him, regretfully. I was terrified of my own heart. It seemed to beat only for whatever it wanted, regardless if that very thing was bound to strike it dead. It seemed to stop and start with the way Sebastian carried it so. And now, I was bound again to loose the very thing which I existed solely for. 

Perhaps, I had undoubtedly lost sight of whatever true objective there had been to begin with.

That is why I was urged to take responsibility… that is why I was urged to understand my own end as well as his.

He kissed me again, softly.

It was so gentle and warm, unlike his usual fiery caress of tongue against lip and hands against waist. His lips lingered for a time against mine, and my eyebrows knitted with the solidity of tears to accompany them. His thumb stroked against the skin behind my ear, coaxing the smallest of whimpers from me. He took the last bit of my heart with him when he pulled away so slowly, breaking my very being into two, for now he carried half of me with him as well. 

His hand fell away as petals would to the melting snows of May.

I lay back down beside him, feeling the warmth of his arms sliding around me chest to pull my back against him. 

I suppose I should not have expected an answer, but somehow I felt as though I barely needed one.

 

My heart sank slowly… deeply.

 

I knew that once I awoke he would be gone… and sure enough, as I drifted off to sleep, I heard him whisper quietly,

 

“I love you, little one… but you know I cannot stay.”

 

I suppose that then had been as good a time for him to abandon me as any, for it would only hurt more as the years would pass us by. It would only cause more heartbreak for each of us to try and explain what had happened to the boy with the eyepatch, and his seemingly immaculate butler. People were bound to notice he had changed, and there was no possible way to keep such an unforgiving love hidden for long.

 

And so, this is where my story ends.

 

It didn’t end completely, but a very important part of me was since then missing. It was something irreplaceable and lost to me forever. I would try many times to remember how it had felt, but he was the only one whom I had ever loved fully, in such horrible completion. I plead guilty to my own sorrows, and to Elizabeth’s, as well. She would forever live a lie which she would never be brave enough to question. I could never be what I was for him for anyone else. He had been something I believe not many people could imagine at all, no matter how hard they tried.

He had not left me another note that day, for words were hardly ever needed between us. All he had left me were two, stark white gloves… folded neatly beside me, nestled into leaves. They smelled of him, and oh… how tightly I clutched them to myself, inhaling deeply between wracking, aching sobs which seemed to crush my lungs beneath them. I would carry them within my pocket every day for the rest of my functioning life. they stayed like that, never worn… never washed. Every night, I would place them beneath my pillow in secrecy, and whenever I felt unkept or unwell, I would reach into my coat and feel them there, reminding me of who I was, and who I was always bound to be.

That day when I awoke to an empty space behind me, every pint of blood within me ran cold. I didn’t dare turn around for a good hour, eyes closed… trying harder than ever not to cry out in agony. When I did turn around to find him gone, I couldn’t contain the scream which unraveled within me. My clothes had been neatly folded beneath the tree, and there had been no sign of life nor movement. It was as if I had been isolated within my own, silent hell.

No swirl of wind… no ray of sun.

I had gotten up and raged, calling for him endlessly, pulling at my own hair. I screamed over and over,

“Come back! Please, come back!”   
Until my voice was raw, I screamed,

“I didn’t get to say goodbye!”

Though I wasn’t sure I would have wanted that, either.

Finally, once every tear in my body had been expelled, and I was exhausted from the tempest of my sobs and cries, I collapsed to the forest floor, clinging to his gloves, kissing them profusely. 

It was a carnal, vicious scene. If the thing a man loves the most in the world is taken from him, that is what creates an animal. He is reduced to his most basic instincts to his most heartbreakingly raw state… to his need. 

I understood the meaning of heartbreak that day, and I experienced it once again the day I realized I truly would never see him again. It was four years later. My wife had found me crying in our room… had asked me what was wrong. There were no words for me to tell her, and so I had simply buried my face within her chest and cried ever harder. 

She never asked again why I had been crying, but I think somehow she already knew.

Not many questions had been asked regarding Sebastian’s disappearance. When I had returned late that night, disheveled and a right mess, I had simply told them he had left. I couldn’t bear much more without crying again, and so no more questions had ever been asked.

I still looked for his face in every stranger… still wondered where he had gone.

I could never forget the way his gaze had felt across my skin… the way he always seemed to embrace me with his aura and with his mind. He had put a sort of spell on me, and I was left unbounded and hopeless. 

He was spilled ink upon clothes of white silk; forever tainting them black and morbid. 

No, I could never forget the density of his spirit, and I could never, ever forget him.

Every single step I took was work unpaid for.

I remember how it felt to feel him… to wake up next to him and to wake up without him. Both were unforgivable feelings. Neither could ever be replicated by anyone but him.

How I howled that first night spent without him in the manor, pillows tucked all around me in my efforts to avoid the ache… to avoid the clear, jagged freeze creeping up my spine ever since.

Something had been broken that day, something invaluable to me… and I had never been the same, regardless of efforts made and tragedies avoided. Not ever had I once recalled the way the sun stroked the mansion walls with gold. No longer would I mingle with the dust which seemed to float within the still, quiet air of the library. No longer was my soul so immaculate and free, roaming and bounding between things as it once had. 

 

I knew that my soul would long for him infinitely… and no longer did I feel that anything could be infinite.

 

 

The cold he left on my back was infinite.

 

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
> A long authors note will be proceeding this as the epilogue, as I have much to say.


	23. Author's Note

This story has been a long time in the making. The idea had been floating around in my head ever since around December of 2014. I've delved pretty deeply into Kuroshitsuji, reading all the fan-theories, dissecting Yana's notes and looking for clues about hidden bits of the story. I've watched the anime, read the manga, and I have to say that these two characters are some of the most beautiful and complex characters ever created. Their personalities go so deep... and they intertwine in a way that I've never seen before. It's almost as of they are one character. It's nearly impossible for one to exist without the other at this point. I felt a deep need to expose the nature of their relationship. Often, fanfic writers don't see the complex subtext within the story, and so the idea of a quite dark and twisted style of writing, and storyline came to mind. I didn't have much experience writing angst in a way that was realistic, but could also broke your heart. That's what I was going for. I didn't want it to be overwhelming. I wanted it to seem natural and real... as if it could fit in the storyline its self. I spent a lot of time doing character studies, particularly on Ciel, so that I could write them as cannon as possible. 

Ciel is so much more than most fans make him out to be. He is in no way an innocent child. This is a story about a kid who lost literally everything, then was thrown into an unending cycle of abuse and horror, only to emerge extremely scarred... so scarred that he unknowingly summoned a demon. Not only that, but he then accepted the demon's fate he offered. He in no way did this blindly. Every single move he makes is so carefully orchestrated and planned. He is neither evil nor good, he simply does what he knows will benefit him. I don't necessarily think that extends to Sebastian, though. Their relationship is so sensual and profound, I think it's quite clear that Ciel literally needs Sebastian to be sane. I think he is far past judging himself or anyone else, and so I don't think I would label him as even being a sexual person (which is hard to get your head around, seeing as I made him quite sexually mature - which I think he would be with Sebastian). I din't think he's 'gay' or 'straight' or has even entertained thoughts of sex. I just think that this bond he has with Sebastian goes so deep that it would be nearly impossible for their relationship to be anything but extremely deep, complex, and as a result, sexual. That is human nature. That is Ciel's whole character - he exposes the grimy truths about us, and he isn't afraid of his fascination with darkness.

Likewise, Sebastian is nothing but carnal desire. He is pure, raw power... it overwhelms Ciel, naturally. It would overwhelm anyone. But of course, he would only show that side of him to his master, who holds the very breath of him within his little palm. Sebastian is starving for Ciel. Ciel/Ciel's soul are somewhat the same... this is another reason why I think it would be unfair to say that Sebastian has not tried to at least touch Ciel. He hungers for this boy whom he sees as perfect... the holy grail of souls. He lusts after Ciel by every means of the word. This power dynamic is what keeps their excitement alive. Ciel knows he can never hold a candle to Sebastian and yet, he still takes advantage of the little control he has over this creature, and he uses it well. Sebastian has to obey Ciel's orders. He has to - and Ciel has to give them. But that's what makes it so interesting that Sebastien, in the end, is undoubtedly the one with all the power. One of the reasons I turned Sebastian human is because it never had been done before, but realistically, it's inevitable. Perhaps not him literally turning human as I wrote it here, but I think that it's only a matter of time before Sebastian looses a part of himself to Ciel, just as the idea was entertained that Ciel became a demon... there's no way they can avoid being intertwined like that. The other reason I ended it this way is quite personal. Perhaps I'll share another time, but writing this really helped me through some hard spots in my life, and I needed to feel that release. Luckily, it fit perfectly.

Yes, SebaCiel is wrong. I'm not one of those shippers who is going to try to convince you that it's not, because that's the whole point - it is. Kuroshitsuji is an extremely dark and twisted story. If you don't like the idea of SebaCiel, I would like to entertain the idea that you shouldn't be liking any of the story. No one sexualized the corset scene, or the asthma scene, or the scene in the witch arch but Yana herself. The story is so far-fetched that getting your knickers in a twist about a ship is really the last thing you should be thinking about. Ciel is fucked up and wrong. Sebastian is fucked up and wrong. The story is fucked up and wrong... not shippers for seeing something that was clearly put there in the subtext. There's nothing innocent about Kuroshitusji at all. At all. People like dark stories because we as humans tends to need to explore the dark twisted parts of our minds. We like to pick apart the psyche. We try to understand everything we can. Most importantly, media is there to reflect upon.

Sebastian and Ciel's relationship is fucked up, basically.

As soon as I realized this, it was painfully clear to me why I was so drawn to them. If you fully understand, you'll know what I mean. I find it hard to explain the complexity of their relationship in words like this. I needed to write something that would expose every little flaw, every little nook and cranny of their relationship. I waited for so long because I wanted to be a good enough writer to express my ideas in the right way. I think I was successful, but I'm in no way done with these two. In fact, I've already begun planning a short sequel to follow this up with. This was my first fic which included smut in the chapters, so it was a new experience for me to try to write. Now that I know how to execute it, and now that I've read so many more amazing stories which inspire me endlessly, I plan to be making a few more in due time.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to say thank you.

I never thought in any of my wildest dreams that this story would get so far. Having all of you leaving my comments and feedback... hearing the way my writing effected you... was quite overwhelming. Some of you even compared me to people like robovaction... or grouped this piece together with A Magnificant Depravity (arguably one of my favorite pieces of writing), which was literally insane to me. I cannot say thank you enough. Though I'ma bit sad this piece is over, I hope that you'll stick around to see what else I have to offer in the future! 

This experience will live with me infinitely.

Your writer,  
Mika


End file.
